Scripture Reading: Joshua 6:1–20; Zechariah 4:6; 1 Corinthians 1:25–29; 2 Corinthians 10:3–5; Revelation 8:1–6
Imagine being told that the strongest wall standing between you and God’s promise would fall—but your instructions were to walk around it.
No battering ram. No siege towers. No brilliant military strategy. Israel stood before Jericho, a fortified city with walls designed to keep armies outside, and God gave Joshua a battle plan that must have sounded almost absurd: march, carry the ark, blow trumpets—and for six days, do little else.
The soldiers must have looked at those walls and wondered, How can this possibly change anything?
Perhaps that was the point.
God was teaching Israel something before they ever entered the Promised Land: not every battle is won by becoming stronger than what stands against you.
For six days they walked around Jericho while the walls remained exactly where they had always been. Imagine passing the same stones again and again. Nothing cracked. Nothing moved. Nothing suggested that victory was approaching.
Then came the seventh day.
They marched seven times. The priests sounded their trumpets. The people shouted.
And the walls fell.
The power was never in their footsteps. It was never in the trumpets. It was never in the volume of their shout.
The power belonged to God.
Centuries later, the Lord told Zechariah, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit.” Paul carried the same truth into the New Testament, reminding believers that God deliberately works through what the world calls weak so that human beings cannot mistake His power for their own.
That confronts something deep within us.
We spend much of life trying to become powerful enough to handle everything ourselves. We want enough money, influence, intelligence, strength, certainty, or control to guarantee the outcome. But what happens when God allows us to stand before something we cannot overpower?
Perhaps the wall is teaching us something.
There are walls human strength cannot bring down: hatred passed through generations, pride buried deep within the heart, bitterness we have protected for years, fear that governs our decisions, divisions between people who have forgotten how to listen to one another.
And perhaps our first question should not always be, “How can I become strong enough to defeat this?”
Perhaps it should be:
“God, what are You trying to teach me that strength alone could never accomplish?”
The Bible eventually takes us to Revelation, where trumpets sound again—but now heaven itself is moving history toward God’s appointed end. The lesson begun at Jericho has become unmistakable: history does not finally belong to the strongest army, the loudest voice, or the greatest earthly power.
It belongs to God.
So when you encounter your wall today, don’t immediately assume that its size determines the outcome.
You may be measuring the wall.
God may be measuring your trust
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