How? Through circumcision?

How is it going to happen Lord? You spoke to me so powerfully through Isa. 58. And I know it's for more than just this past month or two, but something I need to keep listening for. A friend this week ended her email with:  "May your light truly break forth like the dawn. May your bones be strong and you be well, well-watered. And may you know the glory of the Lord as your guard and defender." Yes, from this same chapter.

And I find myself wondering, how are you going to strengthen my bones? I feel like I'm getting weaker and weaker. The plans, the methods that seem good for going forward...are just lacking about 5-10 more people helping put them into practise at this point. Okay, well 3 or 4 would even be good.

Yesterday morning I listened to Mark Buchanan's all day workshop on "Spiritual Renewal" from Breakforth 2013. He talked about Joshua and the army heading to Jericho, they have just crossed the Jordan River, and the angel of the LORD comes... And the strategy is not rally the troops and charge. First, it is circumcision. Why then? Why not weeks or months earlier on the other side of the Jordan? They are effectively incapacitated, and vulnerable for weeks. If word of this leaks out to the enemy, they could be slaughtered so easily (remember Dinah, Shechem...Dinah's brothers). Then Buchanan asks: What is your Jericho? What is before you that needs a strategy from God?

Buchanan talked more about the 'incapacitated' part of circumcision, and I wondered if we are in that place now--our forces have certainly been weakened.So I have been wondering and asking You what this is supposed to mean for us. I have sensed these two months need to be a time of rest and recovery, but...I don't know that we are getting there. At least I'm not. Should we just lay down and recover?  What would that mean?

But if I think back on that passage, I think there was  purify yourselves, consecrate yourselves part to it. That is more the point of circumcision--being God's holy people, set apart. Maybe it was a time to check their hearts and their commitment. And...being weakened, also put them in a place of having to trust in God.

Today I purpose, at least for these two days before getting into the next work of planning, to rest, and to wait.