P.S. It's Gonna Be Good - How God's Word Answers Our Questions About Faith, Fear and All the ThingsSýnishorn

What If God’s Promises Don’t Line Up With My Reality?

Have you ever hit a wall?

The obstacle ahead is too great, too hard, too insurmountable, and there seems to be no way around. As you’re scanning up, down, and all around, desperate for a way forward, you feel hope slipping away. Is this all there is for me? Is this as good as it gets? Is it going to be like this FOREVER?

Swing over to Joshua 6 as Joshua comes face-to-face with a stationary wall. Well, technically, walls, and they were known to be impenetrable for a reason. Scholars describe the outside fortification of Jericho as 11 feet high and 14 feet wide with a stone slope angled upward at 35 degrees for 35 feet. Hoping to intimidate, this fortified city created the illusion of standing 10 stories tall from ground level.

It’s here, as we look up at these gates securely barred and the unconquerable city of Jericho protected behind them, that we hear the Lord say to Joshua, “see, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men” (Joshua 6:2, NIV).

“See”? The only thing within eyesight is a wall.

“Delivered”? With Jericho’s men still armed, protected, and untouchable, I can imagine the Israelites scratching their heads too. What are we missing here?

But our God doesn’t misspeak. He spoke in past tense for a reason. In fact, if we rewind a bit in Scripture, we’ll see that God already gave this assurance—“I’ll give you the land”—to His people 14 different times. So in His eyes? Jericho’s defeat was as good as done.

Pause. We aren’t that different from the Israelites, are we? There are things God has told us over and over again in His Word—past tense, as if these promises have already come to pass:

• “We are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37, NIV).
• “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28, NIV).
• “Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NLT).

Yet how many of us are looking around at walls showcasing a different reality?

Good news: As with Joshua, if our reality doesn’t line up with God’s promises yet, that just means He’s not done. I know we’d like to see the positive pregnancy test, the clear scans, and the date on the calendar when we’ll just so happen to cross paths with our future spouse well before we reach Jericho. But since “faith is . . . the certainty of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1, BSB), the call is to keep marching on in faith.

It may look like an unfought battle is ahead, but remember: to the Lord, it’s already a done deal. God is up to something, and in Christ, victory is yours.