That Kind of Week.

It’s been one of those weeks.

I’m sure you’ve had a few of them too. The kind where you dread answering your phone, find reasons to distance yourself from the computer, start avoiding going into stores or anywhere else for that matter.

Plans change, people let you down, stores are out of what you need, your email reminds you of a due date or a decision that needs to be made. Things you thought were solid, become a movable mess. You don’t have the answers. You don’t understand why. So on and so forth, I’m sure you can envision your own days like this.

Why is it that when one “big” thing happens your world may blow up for awhile, sure, but your meltdown then is nothing compared to the one you have with the, say, 100th “little” thing? You were able to brush off or move forward from 99 little things, and then BAM, that next one, that 100, did you in. When a big “bad” thing happens (i.e. breaking my foot), God is at the top of my list to seek out; however, when the little “bad” things (i.e. unexplained pain in my low back) happen throughout my week, my faithfulness to Him is often crowded out and challenged by a gazillion other preoccupying thoughts.

I hit that 100th thing today and it wasn’t pretty. My 100th thing was a very very little thing, but it seemed to open the flood gates to welcome back the other 99 I’d brushed off the rest of the week. I stopped wanting to stand firm, to trust that everything is happening for a bigger plan. I wanted to give in and let myself feel pummeled and broken. Tears flowed, sobs happened, and emotions were being thrown around like a teenage reality TV show complete with the lyrics “when my world is falling apart and I can’t find the light in the dark” (thank you, Miley Cyrus) running through my head. I needed solitude, so I did the only thing one can do in a house of five and four animals: I went for a walk.

My parents live in a valley, twenty miles and a mountain or two outside of town. Our house is surrounded by mountain upon mountain, the sky endless and often breathtaking. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve simply been awed by the grandness of it all. Today’s walk down our dirt road was no different.

It was impossible to escape the brilliance of sunlight coming through millons and millons of trees, shadowing mountains off into the distance. It was impossible to focus on the stream of thoughts muddled in my head each wrestling itself to the top of my emotions, each trying to pull me deeper into a pit of worry and frustration. Instead, for the first time in some 30 minutes, it was impossibly easy to focus on the grandness of God.

My heart wasn’t in thanking Him for the ability to walk today. In fact, it was all but complaining about my ankle and the slow pace I had to keep with all this adrenaline running inside of me. Slow and steady. Taking time. One foot in front of the other. Just like Joshua and the Israelites did back in the day.

I’m not sure how my mind made that jump, but I had the time and there it was.

Joshua, a man with a reputation for believing God against all odds. Joshua, who was picked to lead God’s people into the Promised Land. Joshua, who did what he knew he could not do through the might of the living God. Joshua, who was told in advance, like us, that he’d be able—“As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them” (Joshua 1:5-6).

God uses Joshua in so many ways for His glory and kingdom, but today my thoughts drifted to Jericho. (Joshua 5-6)

After so many dramatic events, including a recent parting of the waters of the Jordan River, Joshua was instructed to lead the Israelites on a march around Jericho for six days and then seven more times on the seventh day. No superpowers, no instant demolition, no shortcuts with a simple one time around to knock down the walls. Instead God says do 13 laps and give a good shout, sound the trumpets, and the walls will collapse!

I don’t think that plan made sense to the Israelites, or even to a seasoned war strategist like Joshua. I imagine that by the third or fourth day of marching in the hot sun, one foot in front of the other, over and over, I’d have come up with more than a few grumbles and new ideas on how to knock down the walls too. And by the seventh day, on the fourth lap around, without even a pebble dropping off the wall . . . yeah, I might have felt like I was having one of those weeks, with every step nearing that “100th“ little thing.

My lesson from Joshua today was this: sometimes God directs us to keep walking around walls or stand firm against the same little things day after day, repeating the same old fundamental steps even while nothing seems to happen. Oh, it will. We must never stop believing it will. Just as profoundly as walls collapsing in and a city being taken in a matter of minutes, God will move and work in each of our lives.

But in the meantime, we’ve got to keep walking and keep circling no matter how many times we’ve done it before, no matter how many things come at us, and no matter how many times we’re yet to do it.

It’s in the day-in-day-out fundamentals that we’re challenged the most in our faithfulness. It’s in all of those “little” things that God is able to plant seeds of fruitfulness and faithfulness. My own walk today served to remind me of God's faithfulness and that I, for one, want to be more like Joshua, believing in the grandeur of God against all odds. No matter what kind of week it is.

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. 
DO NOT BE TERRIFIED; 
DO NOT BE DISCOURAGED, 
FOR THE LORD YOUR GOD WILL BE WITH YOU WHEREVER YOU GO."

Joshua 1:9