I got a text from a friend today. It’s not unusual for us to text each other with a thought or a question as we study the word, or think through the issues we face. The question today was, “Joshua 6 – Jericho, shouts and the walls came down. Scripture just says they shouted. Shouted what? Shouts of praise?”

And I had one of those clarifying moments. Profound? Well you decide. The thought that went through my heart was,

“The Key is never the WHAT but the THAT!”

And I texted that then continued, “It’s about Faith and Obedience. Think about all the things in that incident alone. The marching didn’t do it. The shouting didn’t do it. The walking around the city did not do it. The walls didn’t start to erode or crumble days 1-6. They didn’t shake on revolutions 1-6 on day 7. No, it was THAT they believed and obeyed. And Joshua 6 says, ‘When they heard the rams horns and they troops gave a great shout, the walls collapsed.”

And then my thought continued, “and what was left standing when the dust settled? It was Rahab’s section of the wall, where she was in her ‘apartment’ with her family in obedience to the instruction given. Red cord hanging from her window. Was the red cord magic? No. Oh the red cord is a beautiful picture of salvation, but it was THAT she believed and obeyed.”

And then I texted one other example from that story, from the flip side. “When Achan stole a robe, a little silver, and a little gold; it wasn’t WHAT he took, it was THAT he didn’t trust God and obey. He took God’s part.”

Then the final observation, “It’s always about Faith and Obedience. It’s interesting how many times God did something UNIQUE in the circumstance. Whether Moses, Joshua, Gideon, David, Daniel, many manifestations of God’s power, but every time the action is unique. The uniqueness was that there wasn’t a ‘magic incantation’ or a ‘rain dance’, it was always about Faith and Obedience.

It’s not about the WHAT, its always about the THAT – Faith and Obedience.