They must have faced them. They must have. Doubts. I don’t know if it was hot or cold. We don’t really know how many of them there were. We do know they were assembled in a prescribed order. And we know they were commanded to march around 7 times. What must it have been like? Remove the Veggie-Tales slushies and the Sunday-School images and really step back in the story. They had already marched around once a day for six days, the priests, the trumpeters and the armed men. On this seventh day when they were commanded to march around seven times, what must have gone through their minds? I have to think that some at least doubted. If the ratio was consistent with the “10 were bad and 2 were good” then most of them did. And still they marched. What if they had quit? What if the sixth time around they simply said, “You know, this is stupid! Why 7? If God is God, couldn’t He just kill everyone inside and open the gate?” What if they had quit that sixth time around?
Now, flash forward with me a few thousand years to late December, 2006 and pan over to the ‘Texas Land & Cattle’ steakhouse on the North side of San Antonio, Texas. Heather and I were seated at a table with four friends and supporters from the Cowboy Fellowship. They had driven up to meet us and take us out to eat. Apart from the gifts and the check and delicious dinner, the thing that stuck with us the most from that evening was the encouragement from Pastor Pete. As we shared about the difficulty of ministering in Italy, the hard soil, the six years of toiling and seeing very little visible fruit, Pete simply stated, ‘What if the Israelites had stopped the sixth time around?’
So true, so simple: an answer that bridges the debate between those that say we are called to be obedient and others who say we are called to be successful. Often in Scripture we see the two going hand-in-hand.
So today, we find ourselves in Ancona, on our 7th anniversary of our arrival on the field and I’m even now tempted to doubt, tempted to ask, “How long?”. We walk in the shadows of these tall, spiritual walls and sometimes it is hard not to doubt – but we keep going. Seven years down and who knows how many to go. Our faith is in a God that is creative (who else would have people march around a city seven times) and above all, loving (who else would sacrifice his own son). He loves these people and wants to see things here in Ancona, as brother Wright would say, ‘put to rights.’ We believe He wants to see a church rise up, a real, living, breathing community of people that are passionate in their pursuit of their Creator, in becoming like Jesus and in giving everything they have back to Him.
So, though the walls may be tall, round and round we go.
