Living in a “Jericho” Season

Waiting on God is like piling prayers in a heap and wondering if God will answer. Any. Of. Them. Beth Vogt beckons us to keep waiting.

Elisa

Living in a “Jericho” Season

By Beth K. Vogt

“The Lord will accomplish what concerns me; Your lovingkindness, O Lord, is everlasting; Do not forsake the works of Your hands.” Psalm 138:8

I’ve been waiting all year for God to answer one prayer.

Of course, I’ve prayed myriads of prayers through the past 12 months. Myriads – a nice biblical word that means countless or a heap.

This one prayer? It sits on top of my prayer heap.

With the arrival of December, I turned the last page of my 2025 calendar and glanced over the months, all the way back to January when a morning phone call erupted into a conflict between me and a family member. More flipping of mental calendar pages to try and recall how words wrecked a relationship that seemed solidly rooted in love and mutual understanding.  

I fast forward past painfully silent nights, unanswered texts, and a failed attempt at mediation … and here we are.

No resolution.

No reconciliation.

I’m a fixer, but it’s been proven again and again that I can’t fix this.

I’ve asked God what to do or say to bridge the impasse. He’s told me to wait. To accept my Jericho Season.

Doesn’t God know it’s all too easy for me to read the story of Jericho with the song about walls “tumbling down” playing in my mind?

But Jericho is much more than a children’s Bible story. Jericho was the Israelite’s first battle in the Promised Land after 40 years of wandering in the desert. Jericho was also a formidable enemy – not just part of a catchy kids’ tune with fun hand motions. God called the Israelites to walk in silence around the city for seven days before causing the walls to fall when they shouted, but God was working in the waiting, in the silence. He was working before the walls fell.

God will ask us to wait – and the waiting is a key part of winning the battle. The Israelites were called to defeat Jericho. Most of that battle was accomplished in silence. For six days, it looked like nothing was happening except for foolish trudging around a barricaded city. (Joshua 6:3) And yet, God was with them. God was teaching the Israelites to trust him, day by day, step by step.

God will ask us to keep our eyes on him. (Joshua 6:7) The ark of the covenant was central to the Israelites defeating their enemies – a reminder the Israelites were trusting in their God. They carried the ark while they walked around Jericho because they needed to remember who God was and what he’d done for them in the past. In doing so, the Israelites would trust God for their future.

A few weeks after I understood God had called me to wait, I told my husband that God was prompting me to walk the street where the family members we’re in conflict with live. To walk and to pray for them.

And so, for several months now, once a week late at night, my husband and I walk and pray. For them. For us. It’s as if we’re walking around my myriads of prayers – my prayer heap – step by step, our eyes focused on God. Unlike the Israelites who were told to march for seven days until the walls around the city fell, I don’t know how many days we’ll do this.

Dwelling in the reality of my Jericho Season is painful. But my eyes are on God. I trust in him. Until the day I can praise God for the victory – his victory – I’m waiting on him to accomplish what concerns us.

Beth K. Vogt believes God’s best often waits behind the doors marked “Never.” She has authored more than a dozen novels and novellas, both romance and women’s fiction. Her most recent release is Together This Christmas. Beth is a Christy Award winner, an ACFW Carol Award winner, and a RITA® finalist. Her novel Things I Never Told You, book one in her Thatcher Sisters Series by Tyndale House Publishers, won the 2019 AWSA Golden Scroll Award for Contemporary Novel of the Year. An established magazine writer and former editor of the leadership magazine for MOPS International (now called The MomCo), Beth blogs for Learn How to Write a Novel and The Write Conversation and also enjoys speaking to writers’ groups and mentoring other writers. She lives in Colorado with her husband, Rob, who has adjusted to discussing the lives of imaginary people. Connect with Beth at bethvogt.com.