And the walls came a tumbl'in down Sept. 13

Change is often difficult isn't it? Changing schools, changing jobs, changing friends, changing seasons (although winter to spring seems easiest). But I think the most difficult is the change in relationships. The subtle shifts in how we interact with one another is often tricky to navigate. Take a child with his parent for example: The child has always enjoyed a quick peck on the cheek when saying goodbye to mom or dad and then one day it happens, the slip, the shrinking back, the shift in relationship. How about the parent with the child who has broken the law for the first time and mom and dad don't come to the rescue but allow the lesson to be fully taken in. Or how about the first time you discover that from now on you will be buying your own clothes with your own money from your own job! Oh the horror of it all. It's not that our parents love us any less it is simply that the relationship is changing.

This is the place we find the nation of Israel in Joshua 3-6. They are now learning that God's direction, His leading, is something they must seek out for each situation they will encounter. They must become sensitive and alert to the movements of God's leading. In Joshua 3:4 He instructs them to pay attention because they

haven't been this way before.

There are moments in my life when the walls simply seem to big and the circumstance seem beyond my abilities to overcome. In those moments we must find ourselves learning to ask the fundamental question

where is the spirit of God leading in this situation, in this battle, in this conflict?

It is in those moments that I discover that, although I may not have picked the place He leads me, I would never trade the results of where He leads me. The walls come a tumbl'in down. When I'm defamed and I show humility and grace, when I'm hated and I show love, when I'm rejected and I extend friendship, the strongholds of the World start to crumble under the pressure of the Kingdom.

So may we be people of the Kingdom of God who have learned to listen and watch for the leading of the Captain of the Lord's army, and may we join Him on the journey through a

way we haven't been before

, and may the walls in our lives, our community, our families, come a tumbl'in down!

Peace To You,
Jonathan Walker