The Walls of Life

Several years ago, life felt a bit overwhelming. Between trying to be present for family, significant church responsibilities and, of course, my duties at work, I felt as if I was burning the candle on both ends. With all of that, I found myself feeling stressed and discouraged. The responsibilities felt endless, and the obstacles in front of me seemed bigger than my capacity to handle them. I remember wondering how much longer I could keep moving forward carrying everything on my plate.

During this period, I turned to the Book of Hebrews in the New Testament and one verse in particular struck me as an answer to prayer:

“By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days” (Hebrews 11:30).

This verse reframed things for me.

Circling the Wall

The story of Jericho in Joshua 6 is fascinating. The Lord’s instruction was remarkably simple: walk around the city once a day for six days, then seven times on the seventh day before shouting and blowing trumpets.

I am not a physicist, and I cannot explain how marching around a wall eventually results in collapse. On the surface, the instructions seem almost menial. Yet perhaps that is part of the point.

Faith asks us to trust simple acts of obedience before we see meaningful results. Miracles often come after obedience that can sometimes feel repetitive, ordinary, and perhaps even unreasonable (think Naaman washing in the Jordan seven times).

Faith for Day One, Day Three, and Day Six

The lesson for me is this:

We all have walls in our lives.

Sometimes they are obstacles to happiness. Sometimes they are fears, burdens, discouragement, disappointments, or barriers standing between us and where we hope to be.

Our task is to trust the Lord enough to keep circling those walls.

Sometimes the promised blessing comes after one lap. More often, it seems to come after six days of wondering whether anything is happening at all.

On day one, we need faith to begin.

On day three, we need faith to ignore discouragement—or even the voices that quietly mock the effort.

On day six, we need faith not to lose heart because the wall is not even starting to crack.

The Walls Will Fall

What I realized—or perhaps remembered—is that if I exercise faith and keep “compassing about” the walls in my life, the Lord will eventually bring them down.

Whether that takes seven days or seven years, my job is not to force the miracle. My job is to trust Him and keep walking.

The walls that impede us will fall as we trust the Lord’s simple commands. We just need to remain faithful long enough to see the seventh day.

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Lead image generated by Gemini AI

P.S. Here is the Tabernacle Choir singing “The Battle of Jericho”.