The look of obedience

This morning, in part of my reading, I came to Joshua 6. This is the story of the battle at Jericho, or should I say the look of obedience. When I read the story with my 20th century eyes I often fail to see the absurdity of what God told them to do in light of the problem. God told the people to march around the city once each day for 6 days and on the 7th day to wall around it 7 times, shout and the walls would fall down. Can you imagine what this simple obedience looked like to those looking out from the city? "What are they doing?" one would ask another. "What do they hope to accomplish with all that marching?" another would respond. Then from the wall another would yell to the children of Israel marching around the walls, "You can march all you want, but you won't get in here." You see, the walls of Jericho were built in a very interesting way to prevent attach. In that day and time it made conquest of the city almost impossible. If you attached the walls it would look like D-Day all over again...dead warriors everywhere. God's plans for us often look funny to us and to the world around us. He works with us based on the fact that he will be working through us, and that changes everything about how we approach a problem. It makes everything different when God's involved, and it makes our obedience look rather silly to the world, but be obedient anyway. It's that simple obedience, that little faith, that makes room for God to do the amazing and impossible.