Do you feel like you are running on empty and have nothing left to give? Perhaps you have been living in a holding pattern, with no end in sight? Will you trust God with your future, even though the odds look against you? A21 co-founder Christine Caine shares lessons on her podcast from the Book of Joshua to help followers of Jesus push past the barriers they are facing and move forward in their faith journey.
Hitting a Wall
For believers, we can go through seasons in our lives where we feel depleted, discouraged and cannot see beyond the challenges we are facing. Christine Cain likens such a state as to “hitting a wall”, an experience to describe how athletes can feel searing pain in a race and they are tempted to give up. If that is you, Christine encourages you to keep going.
“There’s still hope. The race isn’t over yet. It’s still possible to meet your goal. Don’t stop running!”
In endurance sport, when you hit a wall your body has run out of glycogen and you have no energy to think. Christine unpacks the experience to her listeners,
“The wall is when you have nothing at all left to give. You’re done, you’re just done. You’ve expended every ounce of energy and everything within you wants to quit.”
But Christine says that even though you may think you have no strength to walk an extra step there is somewhere deep down inside, the flicker of a goal or a dream, that cries out not to be extinguished.
Revisiting the Jericho Wall
Christine suggests to listeners that there are lessons to be learned from the Bible where figures faced walls of opposition. She cites Joshua leading the Israelites into the Promised Land and reads from the Book of Joshua 5:13-6:20.
After 430 years in captivity as slaves in Egypt, the Lord miraculously set his people free in Egypt. They witnessed a host of miracles during their deliverance but the first thing they encountered before entering the Promised Land was a large Jericho wall. Christine asks,
“What do you do when you are not expecting a wall? When you are expecting milk and honey and you get confronted with a wall? You are in a Promised Land but you have hit a wall.”
Jericho was considered a great walled fortress of all time where the city was surrounded by two great stone walls. The outer wall was 20 feet tall and 6 feet wide, the inner wall was 30 foot tall and 20 feet wide and these walls were separated by a 15 foot garden walkway. With spears, swords and arrows, the Israellites were simply ill-equipped to destroy the giants before them. Christine notes,
“From a human perspective this was an unconquerable city. It was not an improbable victory, it was impossible!”
Christine says like the Israellites you may be facing a barrier between yourself and God’s best for you. By human standards, the situation seems impossible to overcome whether it’s a need for healing, your marriage restored or conceiving a child. Christine notes that the exhaustion of your circumstance is weighing on you and has caused you to doubt.
“The disappointment of hitting an unexpected wall has wounded you so deeply you fear trusting God ever again.”
Christine encourages her listeners to not give up and that your breakthrough may be just around the corner.
Keep pressing on
The Book of Hebrews 11:30 tells of the faith victory when the Israellites followed God’s direction to enter the Promised Land
“By faith the walls of Jericho fell after the people marched around them for 7 days.”
Christine says we can learn a lot from the Israellites persistence in walking each lap at a time.
The walls came down by their faith but it required the children of Israel to physically walk around the walls for seven days. Christine shares,
“When we walk by faith and not by sight, we become people of faith who are learning to trust God even when we cannot trace him.”
Every lap, the Israelites were learning to trust God. Likewise for followers of Jesus today, every step, every lap of the journey is just part of the preparation process where your faith is being built up. Christine shares some key lessons we can see from Joshua’s posture as a leader during this episode in Israel’s history.
Cultivating a posture of awe and humility
What is your posture before God? Are you trying to do what only God can do? Christine says that like Joshua we need to get to a point where we fully submit to God’s will for our lives.
Christine recalls Joshua’s encounter with the Commander of the Army of the Lord where he was told to take off his sandals because he stood on holy ground. Joshua responds by calling the Commander of the Army of the Lord “My Lord”. Joshua lied down on his face and had reached a place of total surrender. Christine suggests that Joshua shows us that
“Our all must be at the feet of Jesus- that is the secret. We have to humble ourselves and yield control to the only one who is really in control and that is God.”
As believers we need to learn to be at the feet of Jesus. You can trust God he is with you and for you. Joshua has reached a place of total surrender. If we are to overcome the giants we face we also need to humble ourselves, yield to God and give up complete control.
We need to obey God unconditionally
God gave Joshua quite a bizarre battle plan. It did not make sense in the natural world where none of the battle plan had any military value. Christine attests that this is God’s way,
“In over 30 years of following Jesus, I have discovered that Jesus will always give us the battle plan but you better be prepared for unconventional instructions and unconditional obedience.”
Jesus’ instructions don’t make sense to our human understanding. She reflects,
“What is impossible with man, is possible with God.”
Christine says she has discovered that strange plans call for strong faith. God is infinite and we are finite and refers to Isaiah 55:8-9 where we are told that God’s ways and his thoughts are higher than ours as an invitation to trust God who is all knowing.
To hear more from Christine Caine on how you can fight off faith and move forward in faith, listen here . here.
