Joshua 6:1-5: in context

As Israel faces the fortified city of Jericho, God gives Joshua a plan that makes no military sense. The army is to march around the city once a day for six days, with seven priests blowing trumpets before the ark. On the seventh day they are to march around seven times, and then, at a long trumpet blast, all the people are to shout, and the wall will fall down flat. No siege, no battering rams, no assault, just marching, trumpets, and a shout. By human strategy, it was absurd; but it was God's command, and by it the walls would fall.

God's plan for taking Jericho was, by human reckoning, foolish. Marching around a city and shouting is not how walls are brought down; there was no military logic to it. Yet this was God's command, and the taking of the city would come not by human strategy but by faith-filled obedience to God's unlikely instructions. Israel had to choose whether to obey a command that made no sense to them, trusting that God's way, however strange, would accomplish what he purposed. And they obeyed, and the walls fell. By faith, Hebrews says, the walls of Jericho fell down, after they had been encircled for seven days. This holds a lesson about obeying God's ways even when they seem strange or contrary to human wisdom. God's ways are often not our ways; his methods can seem foolish, illogical, or inadequate by human reckoning. And we can be tempted to trust our own strategies over his commands, to follow the way that makes sense to us rather than the way God directs, especially when his way seems strange or unpromising. Jericho teaches us to obey God's ways in faith, even when they make no sense to us, trusting that his methods, not ours, accomplish his purposes. The foolishness of God, Paul says, is wiser than men; what seems foolish by human reckoning is God's wisdom, and his ways accomplish what our strategies cannot. This searches whether we trust and obey God's ways or lean on our own wisdom. When God's way seems strange, unpromising, or contrary to human logic, do we obey it in faith, or do we prefer our own strategies that make more sense to us? Israel marched and shouted at God's command, and the walls fell; and we are called to a like faith-filled obedience to God's ways, even when they seem foolish to us, trusting that his methods accomplish his purposes. My ways are not your ways, God says; and his ways, though they may seem strange, are higher than ours and accomplish what ours cannot. This calls us to obey God's ways in faith, trusting his wisdom over our own. The walls of Jericho fell not by human strategy but by faith-filled obedience to God's unlikely command; and we too are called to obey God's ways even when they seem strange or contrary to human wisdom, trusting that his methods, not our own, bring the victory, and that the way that seems foolish by human reckoning may be the very wisdom of God, accomplishing what no human strategy could.

When God's way seems strange, unpromising, or contrary to human logic, do I obey it in faith, or do I prefer my own strategies that make more sense to me, and can Israel, who marched around Jericho and shouted at God's unlikely command so that the walls fell by faith rather than human strategy, move me to a faith-filled obedience to God's ways even when they seem foolish to me, trusting that his methods, not my own, accomplish his purposes, and that the way that seems foolish by human reckoning may be the very wisdom of God?