God's Domino Effect

Lately God's been showing me a large domino board but not the normal way you play the game but hundreds of pieces set end to end laid out across a big open floor.

I see the first dominoes tip and then watch as they knock one into the next - click, click click - as it gains speed and momentum, working it's way around the room.

There are swirls and paths that diverge, a domino pile suddenly splitting and going in different directions only to reconvene down the line back into a singular file as it nears the end of it's run until the last piece has fallen, far from where the first one started.

This is the Domino Effect:

A domino effect is the cumulative effect produced when one event sets off a series of similar[1] or related events, a form of chain reaction. The term is an analogy to a falling row of dominoes. It typically refers to a linked sequence of events where the time between successive events is relatively short...

The literal, mechanical domino effect is exploited in Rube Goldberg machines. In chemistry, the principle applies to a domino reaction, in which one chemical reaction sets up the conditions necessary for a subsequent one that soon follows. In the realm of process safety, a domino-effect accident is an initial undesirable event triggering additional ones in related equipment or facilities, leading to a total incident effect more severe than the primary accident alone.

The metaphorical usage implies that an outcome is inevitable or highly likely (as it has already started to happen) – a form of slippery slope argument. When this outcome is actually unlikely (the argument is fallacious), it has also been called the domino fallacy.[2]

When we find ourselves in deep dark experiences of trials and tribulations it can feel impossible to see the whole board game, to see how all the dominoes are lined up to hit one into the other to take us to a place different than where we started.

All we can see is the seemingly endless line of dominoes that lay in front of us wondering how to move them all, but God.

For it is not our board but God's and they are his dominoes. He knows the path, God laid the board. God put those divergent paths in there and then reconvenes them back together to always work for your good.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. - Romans 8:28

Keeping faith during long trials of waiting and suffering that require patience can be exhausting. It will push you to limits you didn't even know you had while you wait for God's timing to play out, for his dominoes to tip and hit and fall - click, click, click - but once the first one has been pushed with God's mighty divine hand, there is no stopping the momentum. There is no rewinding the clock, or going back to re-position the dominoes to go a different way.

When God is on the move, God is on the move and literally nothing can stop it.

The challenge, one of many, during these seasons of waiting and refinement and judication, isn't just keeping faith during the patience, it's keeping the faith during your pain while being patient.

It's holding tight to God's promise of deliverance and that God will always work things for our good, even if it feels impossible while in the midst of one of hundreds of dominoes that you are waiting to finally fall in your favor.

But, trust, that God has kicked those first dominoes down and they are knocking one-by-one - click, click, click - and they are gaining momentum and speed that no man can stop.

What God has ordains God sustains. Trust it. Know it. See it, even when you feel lost in the dark. God always brings his light into situations, especially when you not only invite him into it, but you fully turn it over.

The LORD of Heaven’s Armies has spoken— who can change his plans? When his hand is raised, who can stop him? - Isaiah 14:27

Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate - Mark 10:9

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. - Ecclesiastes 3:11

You don't have to look long to find examples of the Domino Effect in the bible - "an initial undesirable event triggering additional ones". The stories of Joseph, Joshua, David and Sarah, have been heavy on mind these past many weeks as well.

When you zoom on Joseph's life for example, we see the map of his domino board. We see how how the undesirable event of his very family turning on him, sacrificing him and leaving him for dead, led to a series of events - click, click click - that led him from the pit straight to the palace - and a great humbling for all those that wronged him.

Did it happen overnight? No. Was it a straight line? Absolutely not. Was it full of twists and turns and suddenlies by God's divine hand? Most certainly.

Joshua led the people across the Jordan when it seemed impossible, just as with Moses and the Red Sea . And yet, even in the moment of seemingly impossible, God always makes it possible.

So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them. 15 Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, 16 the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing downto the Sea of the Arabah (that is, the Dead Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho. 17 The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan and stood on dry ground, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground.

- Joshua 3:14-17

Once they crossed the Jordan they eventually ended up outside the walls of Jericho another seemingly impossible task with a ridiculous sounding ask:

2 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. 3 March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days.4 Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ hornsin front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. 5 When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in.” - Joshua 6: 2-5

Walking and blowing Shofar's around a city with thick high walls that seemed impenetrable? Impossible! How would that work? Could they trust that God was going to deliver? They were at the place were they had to.

Have you heard the sound of a Shofar playing for an extended period of time? It's haunting and will move your soul. I can only imagine the terror that began to settle in for the people of Jericho as those trumpets sounded a hour a day for six days and then for eight hours or more that final.

Among many things the Shofar symbolizes and the significant role it played in the Bible and in current day, the ultimate is that it is seen and revered as the Word and Breath of God.

Even as they encircled Jericho, God ordered them to wait until the very end until they let out a loud shout, to speak at the right ordained time for those final dominoes, or walls, to fall.

When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city. - Joshua 6: 20

Those walls fell like tiny dominoes, crumbling all at once, knocked down by the mighty hand of God and the shouting voices of his helpless, desparate, and fully faithful and trusting children - and bringing them home after a long arduous journey. A journey filled with pain and suffering but also God's divine care and protection.

Click, click, click.

The dominoes in your life are falling just as they have been lined up to do.

God is on the move, he will crumble your walls of Jericho and bring you home, while vindicating those things that have served as blocks put up to try to take your eyes of your faith and poison your trust and knowing that God is always on the move on your behalf for your good.

Trust that just as God delivered David, Joshua, Joseph, Sarah and countless other examples captured specifically for their stories to speak to us through the ages, God will carry you and deliver you!

Hold on. Keep going. Stay faithful, stay trusting and know that as God is for you there is nothing man can do to you or against you that God won't handle.

Those last dominoes are falling and God is making a way and clearing your path to step into your purpose.

It's harvest season and the time is now.

Praise be to God, forever and ever.