I am sure there are many people like me who sit at their desks on the first week of the New Year and feel a slight panic at the amount of things which need to be done. My mind is buzzing with deadlines and how to tackle the tasks in front of me.

My tasks are not world changing, so I can only try to imagine what it feels for anyone out there with huge responsibilities. I was thinking also of Joshua who reaches the city of Jericho and is planning how to take control of the city. His people relying on him and this huge task ahead, I wonder if his mind too was buzzing with strategy, ideas and worries,yet he is given a set of strange instructions to follow out, about as far from conventional battle plan as could be imagined, walking around the city and then shouting. Yet it worked, because God was clearly in charge.

 

Maybe the lesson for us all this week before we plunge ahead into the fray,is to put God in charge, to listen to what he is telling us and to carry it out, perhaps it is the only way to deal with the tasks ahead.

 

"Then Joshua fell face down to the ground in reverence, and asked him,"What message does my Lord have for his servant?" Joshua 5 vs 14