Seven weeks. Yesterday marked seven weeks.
There’s something special about that number. In the Bible, God uses the number seven as a symbol for completion, fullness, and perfection.
Completion. Fullness. Perfection.
Yesterday in church, as my mind wandered to that number, I was reminded of the story in Joshua…the story where the Israelites were asked to walk around Jericho…seven times.
We’ve all heard it.
This people…who were descendants of parents who didn’t make it out of the wilderness. They watched their ancestors, who’d been brought up out of bondage, grumble and doubt and fear their way into a path that kept them from entering their promised land.
That’s where they came from.
The Lord knew that. Joshua knew that. So along with being asked to walk around seven times, they were commanded to do one more thing…
“You shall not shout or let your voice be heard, not shall any word proceed out of your mouth until the day I tell you to shout. Then you shall shout!” Joshua 6:10
Not a word.
So, despite what they thought about it, despite just wanting to express their opinion, despite wanting to see if their neighbor felt the same way, despite if they felt the need to defend themselves from those shouting at them from on top of the wall…despite ALL of that…
Not a word. Let not even your voice be heard…probably even in a grumble.
It’s like He knew they might talk themselves out of it. That they might talk about how silly it was that they had to just walk…how it didn’t seem to be doing anything…talking might have kept them from walking.
This group came from a people that at the first sign of distress, they hungered for home…they longed for home…and they talked about it…and there was never a benefit in it…they were never applauded for expressing how they felt. In fact, the result was death. How often do I speak death by expressing my discomfort in something? Shoot, even some of my blogs are written proof of that…
So this was the group. This was the group that was being asked to walk. They were asked to walk for seven days. And at the end…the walls would come down.
Now, we’re the group. The group that’s being asked to walk for seven weeks out here.
God knew. He knew the exact time He was going to have us out here. He knew there was something we would need to glean from these last weeks and days.
Maybe there are walls that still haven’t come down. Maybe there are things that need to be destroyed within that we’ve yet to demolish. Maybe He wants to see if we’ll trust Him enough to walk where and how He’s asking us to walk.
“If they had been thinking with homesick remembrance of that country from which they left, they would have found constant opportunity to return to it. But the truth is that they were yearning for a better, more desirable country…” Hebrews 11:14-15
We can find ways to return. We have found ways to return this whole Race…whether by connecting with those at home or immersing ourselves in movies that look like home or surrounding ourselves with food and comforts that feel like home…
We can always find ways.
But may this last leg…these seven weeks…be ones that we walk on without a word. Without a grumble. Not a word of how much we miss or what we miss or an expressed thought against what we’re here for.
Let us just walk. Let us continue to walk. To walk with a trust that’s marked by our silence.
Soon enough, He will command the shout…and on that day, by all means, let us shout! 
