By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the army had marched around them for seven days.
Hebrews 11:30 (NIV)
The Six Quiet Days
Three kids, three breakfasts. One of them won’t eat eggs this month, and one wants the toast cut corner to corner or it doesn’t count. The mother burns the first two slices, scrapes them over the sink, and hasn’t sat down since six.
By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the army had marched around them for seven days. That means six mornings when the wall was exactly where it had been the morning before. Men walked a circle in front of stone that did not care, went back, and came out the next day to walk the same circle in front of the same stone. Whatever they believed, they believed it on those mornings, with the city sitting there whole.
This kitchen runs on the opposite arrangement. Every morning in it finishes by eight fifteen. Breakfast lands or it doesn’t, the bags go out the door, and she has the whole result of the morning by the time the bus turns the corner. Nothing here is building toward a seventh day, and it never has been.
The middle one makes his own lunch now. She asked him the once, back in April, and he has done it every school day since.
So keep walking the days that look like the day before them. At Jericho the believing happened on the mornings when the wall hadn’t moved, and God brought it down on the day he had named, after six mornings that showed nothing.
On his way past her the oldest stops with the door half open. “The crossing guard’s back,” he says. “He was out all week and nobody told us why.” Then they’re gone, and she stands there with the spatula in her hand, glad about a man she has never once spoken to.
A Prayer to Remember
Walk with me through a week that doesn’t change. I’ve been asking you for the same thing since spring, and nothing about it looks different this morning. Do what you’re doing, and when it comes down, I’d like to still be walking.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
