Keep Circling
Keep Circling
“On the seventh day, march around the city seven times.”
Joshua 6:4
I have a friend who moved to Washington, D.C., in 1994 to fight for a noble cause on Capitol Hill. Tony was deeply concerned that innocent children were being introduced to pornography simply because adult channels were one click away from cartoon channels, so he authored legislation that would force the cable industry to fully scramble pornography channels. As Tony prepared to visit all 435 House offices and 100 Senate offices, he decided to circle the Capitol in prayer seven times. He even let out a Jericho shout after the seventh circle!
Tony knew he couldn’t win this fight without prayer. He also knew that prayer is the difference between us fighting for God and God fighting for us.
After praying seven circles, Tony started knocking on doors and asking for an audience with every member of Congress. Some of the offices applauded his efforts, but Tony was repeatedly told his efforts were too little, too late. The telecommunications bill he was trying to amend had already gone to markup. Tony was told there was no way the chairman of the congressional committee would reopen the bill to include his amendment because he’d have to reopen it to everybody else’s amendments. Tony walked out of the 220th congressional office depressed and defeated. He was ready to throw in the towel and give up the fight when he had a burning bush moment.
I was on the second floor of the Longworth Building. I went over to a window, sat on its cold marble sill, and hung my head in defeat. I said to myself, “Stop wasting your time and go home to San Diego.” Never before, and never since, has God spoken to me so clearly. While I sat there looking down at the marble-tiled floor, totally dejected, these words were spoken to me as clear as a bell: “Who is doing this — you or Me?” I can’t explain how I felt when I heard those words, but I straightened up and responded, “You are, Lord!” Instantly I was filled with more excitement than when I had first begun. At each of the following 215 offices, my presentations were given with renewed faith.
Tony made his last presentation at the Canon Congressional Building. His amendment still seemed like a lost cause, but it’s not over till God says it’s over. If your cause is ordained by God, then the battle belongs to the Lord. It’s His victory to win, not yours.
I am not exaggerating when I tell you this. As my leg crossed the threshold as I exited the 435th office, my pager went off. Chairman Dingle had just agreed to allow my amendment to be added to his telecommunications bill.
Sometimes God shows up; sometimes God shows off!
God’s timing is impeccable isn’t it? He’s never late. He’s never early. God is right on time all the time! Is it a coincidence that Tony’s pager went off just as he exited the last office? I think not. I don’t believe in coincidences; I believe in providence. I believe there is a God in heaven who directs our steps, who prepares good works in advance, who causes all things to work together for good, who fights our battles for us! And if you pray through, there will be a breakthrough!
Don’t lose heart. Don’t lose hope. Don’t lose faith. Don’t lose patience.
Maybe you’ve been interceding for a child who has walked away from the faith. Maybe you’ve been believing for reconciliation in your marriage. Maybe you’ve been waiting for a healing miracle, a financial miracle, or an opportunity miracle.
Keep asking. Keep seeking. Keep knocking.
God rarely does things how or when we expect Him to, and it leads us to question His strange and mysterious ways. I’m sure the Israelites questioned God’s battle plan at Jericho. They would have preferred to storm the gates or scale the walls, but God told them to circle the city for seven days! It didn’t make any sense. It had to feel like forever. But they kept circling!
Sometimes God will push us to our absolute limits — the limits of our faith, of our patience, of our gifts. That is how God stretches our faith and builds our character. Remember when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac? When God intervened and provided a ram in the thicket? God’s intervention didn’t take place until Abraham had put Isaac on the altar, tied him down, and raised the knife. God pushed Abraham to the precipice of logic. He tested Abraham to see if Abraham trusted Him. Abraham passed the test and got a testimony!
There is a branch of history called counterfactual theory that asks “what if” questions. It imagines how history would have unfolded differently if certain things had or had not happened. Let me play counterfactual theorist with biblical history.
What if the Israelites had stopped circling Jericho on day six? For that matter, what if Elijah had quit praying for rain after his sixth request? Or what if Naaman had only dipped in the river six times? And while we’re on the subject, what if Tony had quit his door-to-door campaign after the 220th office?
The answer is obvious: the miracle would have been forfeited right before it happened.
I don’t know what you’ve been circling for the past forty days or forty weeks or forty years. I don’t know if you’ve gotten a yes, a no, or a not yet. You’ve got to praise God if the answer is yes and trust Him if the answer is no. If the answer is not yet, you’ve got to keep circling. It’s always too soon to give up! What other option do you have? To pray or not to pray. Those are the only options.
None of my dreams have happened quickly or easily. There was nothing glamorous or glorious about the early days of our church plant adventure. There were certainly moments when I felt like quitting, when I was tempted to think all of our efforts wouldn’t make much difference. After all, our average attendance was twenty-five people — and those twenty-five people could have found a much better church to attend. But I was thinking in present-tense terms. When you quit circling, you don’t just compromise the present. Every promise, every miracle, every blessing in your future is forfeited. If I had called it quits, I would have bailed not only on the twenty-five people I was pastoring at the time; I would have bailed on the thousands we’re influencing now and the tens of thousands we’ll influence in the future!
If the Israelites had stopped circling Jericho, they would have forfeited their first victory in the Promised Land. But there was much more at stake than that. They would have forfeited the Promised Land altogether. But they didn’t stop. They kept circling. And if you keep circling, the walls will come down. If you pray through, the breakthrough is inevitable.
Go ahead. Keep circling!
If you don’t get out of the boat, you’ll never walk on water.
From the book
