Day 34 in the Wilderness: You don’t need to understand; just do it.

“You shall march around the city, all you men of war; you shall go all around the city once. This you shall do six days. And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. But the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. It shall come to pass, when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all the people shall shout with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up every man straight before him.””

‭‭Joshua‬ ‭6:3-5‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

In May of this year, an air traffic controller and a passenger on a Cessna 208 single-engine aircraft, would meet under extreme circumstances.

The air traffic controller, Robert Morgan, had just gone on break when he received a desperate call saying that a non-pilot passenger had radioed in and was trying to land a plane.

Passenger, Darren Harrison, was on a flight that left out from the Bahamas. At some point in the flight, the pilot became incoherent with some sort of medical emergency. Darren Harrison was willing to land the plane to save his and the other passengers’ lives, but he had no flying experience. His only hope was that someone could talk him down. As it turned out, that “someone,” would be Robert Morgan.

Fortunately, Robert Morgan was not only an air traffic controller, but also a flight instructor. He had never piloted this particular plane, but secured a diagram of the control panel. The first instructions given were to help Darren Harrison fly in such a way that the control tower could locate his position. Then, step-by-step, Morgan talked Harrison through the procedure to effect a soft landing on terra firma.

Harrison remained calm, following instructions as given. In doing so, a near tragedy was averted.

Now, I want you to imagine—if you will—what might’ve happened if the passenger had insisted on having everything explained to him before complying. Of course, you can be sure that the story would’ve ended very differently. Again, the only hope for a safe landing was that the passenger would successfully follow the instructor’s commands, without question.

This is but one of countless stories where the ability of someone to follow someone else’s instructions has saved lives.

A story I have told before, I will offer again here:

My mother often recounted that when she was a child, her father instructed his children that if he were to ever tell them to stop, not to question, just stop. You see, they lived in South Georgia and there was always a risk of running up on a rattlesnake. He knew that there would not be time to keep a child from being attacked by a snake if they had to know why they were to stop. Their part was just to obey the command.

Sadly, in their walk with the Lord, there are many people who want the Lord to explain every action He has taken, and/or, every action He has instructed them to take.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭55:8-9‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

But the fact is, God is…well, God! He knows what we don’t know. HE HAS ALL KNOWLEDGE. He IS all knowledge!

“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭11:33 ‭NKJV‬‬

And—although God is basically unknowable, He, through Jesus Christ, has given us His own Holy Spirit to lead and guide us into all truth!

“For who has known the mind and purposes of the Lord, so as to instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ [to be guided by His thoughts and purposes].”

‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭2:16‬ ‭AMP‬‬

“However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.”

‭‭John‬ ‭16:13‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Today we see that Joshua has been given a very unusual strategy to follow in the effort to take Jericho. As we noted yesterday, Joshua was a great general. But, part of what makes for a great general, is the ability to recognize when you are out-ranked. Joshua knew that if the Lord commands a strategy, it will never fail, whether or not he understood the rationale behind it. You see, with the Lord, the rational behind the strategy is always the same: He is God and we are not; if we do what He says to do, He will do what He said He would do for us. So, Joshua obeyed and the walls fell down.

I understand the desire to understand. But—the fact is—being led by the Spirit of God does not necessarily produce a course which is intuitive to us. But, the more we listen and obey, the more we will be able to respond without hesitation: He says stop; we stop. He says go; we go. He says walk around the wall all these times; we walk. And…well, you know the rest of the story.

For today write this in your “wilderness journal”:

You don’t need to understand; just do it.

#40daysinthewilderness