October 2nd

Joshua and Jericho

             Now Jericho was shut up inside and out because of the Israelites; no one came out and no one went in.  The Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have handed Jericho over to you, along with its king and soldiers.  You shall march around the city, all the warriors circling the city once. Thus you shall do for six days, with seven priests bearing seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. On the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, the priests blowing the trumpets.  When they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, as soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and all the people shall charge straight ahead.”

Joshua 6:1-5

             This has got to be one of the crazier ideas that I have ever read.  There is no sound military strategy that calls for taking a city by walking around it and yelling.  And yet that is what God tells Joshua to do and that is how the Israelites were victorious.  Sometimes wisdom looks like folly to those on the outside.  That is true with our faith; that is also true with our parenting.

            When my son was small, we would have guests over fairly regularly.  These visits would often turn into question and answer times that went something like this:

            “Why is your son wearing his pajama suit backwards?”

“He kept unzipping it and running around the cold house in just his diaper so we cut off the feet and put it on him backwards so that he couldn’t reach the zipper and he stays warm.”

            “Ah, I see…wait.  Are you feeding him by putting a plate of food on the floor?”

“Yeah.  He won’t eat what we give him, but if we set it out and pretend not to notice, he will creep up and eat his entire meal.”

            “Is this his room?  Why did you remove the door knob?”

“Oh, that.  He kept slamming the door over and over again to hear the sound of the latch clicking so we took it off because it was driving us a little batty.”

            “Wait, so you took his doorknob off but you added a latch hook on the front door, but turned it upside down?  Why would you do that?”

“Our son loves to escape and run free into the street.  We put the latch hook on in the conventional way, but he kept getting the broom and popping the bolt, so we had to put it upside down.”

            Their child starts cooing, “Oh, I am sorry about my child’s wailing…dear God, what is that banshee shriek?”

“That’s the sound of our son!  Pretty good volume, huh?  That’s what comes from having a singer for a mother and a swimmer for a father.  Amazing lung capacity…don’t worry, he’s just bonding with your child.”

            The visit would end and the visitor would usually not come back as they shook their head over how strange our life was.  We would usually not get more than one or two play dates as either the parents or the children decided that the Menaker house was too weird.

            You know who likes weird and strange?  God.  Look at the battleplan that He gives Joshua.  Utter foolishness and insanity.  Just like crying for two hours every night before going to sleep or running yourself past the point of exhaustion over and over again each day or crab-walking instead of standing on two feet because it is faster.  Or trying to send a distress call by throwing pine cones in the air.  Or deciding that you don’t like haircuts because you read the first two pages of a book where the little kid did not like haircuts…and so fighting your parents for 3 years any time you needed a trim.

            I think that God looks at our house and smiles because it is just the kind of insane, unconventional, improvised chaos show that He enjoys putting people into.  Because in those moments the only choice is to rely on God and acknowledge that He is the reason for any success that we have had.

            Foolishness and insanity worked in bringing down the great city of Jericho and they have worked in raising up a great boy.

            This life is weird.

           

A moment to reflect:

How is your life ridiculously crazy?  How do you see God in that?