Principles vs Presence

Joshua 6:1 “Then the Lord said to Joshua, ‘see I have delivered Jericho into your hands.’”
 
  I recently read that the more you excel in any field, the more divergent your tactics will look. Implementing “best practices” will only pull you towards the mean, since everyone is implementing them. If you’re shooting to achieve top 1% outcomes, you can’t copy what’s worked for others.
 
  I’ve similarly found that the closer I get to God, the more my tactics look different from those around me. Sometimes His guidance lines up with “best practices”, but often times following His will looks totally different. God told Joshua that the walls of Jericho would crumble after he marched around the city for seven days. That flies in the face of any traditional military wisdom, and Joshua’s generals must have thought he had lost his mind.
 
  Today I feel God reminding me that hearing and obeying His voice alone brings victory. You can’t follow the “best practices” of the world blindly, nor can you look at others who are following God and extrapolate that what worked for them would work for you. Other military leaders would be fools to march around city walls in their next battle because it worked for Joshua.
 
  Lord so often I look for principles instead of pursuing your presence. I declare that my victory is in you and you alone. In Jesus’ might name, Amen.