Reality shows are hits of TV these days it seems. I’m not into them, but the commercials for them suggest that competitors are exposed to challenging trials, great hardship and threatening circumstances to gain a prize promised them. These are called “reality shows” because they are unscripted programs that require contestants to display strength and courage as they face difficult life situations.

Throughout our lives we face many trials, hardships and threatening circumstances before a prize is claimed. And as we live through these trying times we sometimes question if life is really supposed to be this way. I think maybe it is. Once the Garden of Eden was lost, life has not been easy.

Life was not easy when God called Moses to lead the descendents of Jacob into the Promised Land. God was with them and protected his people as they struggled through difficult times to reach their destination. God provided for their basic needs, but strength and courage were required to reach the goal. Then, even as the time came for the Israelites to enter the land God had promised, God prepared his chosen people for the battle of Jericho. God promised them the land, but they still had battles to fight to claim it. And God was with them as they fought the battle and by God’s hand the Israelites prevailed, but that was not the end. There were still more battles to fight. Each city, one by one, had to be conquered before the gift could be claimed.

 We all have our Jericho battles to fight for the life God intends for us. And with victory over Jericho, other battles will still lie before us. John Eldredge explained it this way in his book, Waking the Dead, “The story of your life is the story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could be and fears it.”[1] We must fight with courage and strength in our journeys through life to claim the gift God has promised. 

God’s promise is that He will be with us. And God’s gift is victory.

 

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