The Promised Land…

Numbers 10:29
“…for the Lord has promised good…”

Has the Lord promised you something good, just as He has me — but when you look around, you have a hard time seeing any good? Oh, you know there is good, but you’ve got to search for it. You have to encourage yourself to choose to see that good. You have to choose to look at what God has done and the miracles He’s already performed so that you can continue to stand in faith that He will complete the work He began. Surely, I am not alone. Surely, there are others in similar places…

Waiting on the promise is hard, isn’t it? Knowing God’s full power — knowing He could lift you up out of your circumstances with no problem, but waking up everyday to the same circumstances or possibly seeing a slight change, but being concerned that it could all change in the blink of an eye and go right back to what it was before? Surely, I am not alone. Surely, there are others here, too…

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the Israelites. They had a huge promise from God. Not only complete freedom, but the Promised Land…a land flowing with milk and honey! But what was the very first thing that met them once they crossed the Red Sea? A desert, right? A dry and barren place. A hopeless place. A place they couldn’t have survived without God helping them and providing for them. Man, I bet they truly expected to go from Egypt straight to the Promised Land, don’t you? They didn’t expect to face the desert, and for 40 years no less! I am sure that wasn’t in their game plan, right? But yet, that’s where God took them. Why? I guess that’s my first human response. Why? They had suffered so much at the hands of the Egyptians, so why didn’t God just swoop them up and taken them straight into the Promised Land? In my opinion (for whatever it’s worth), is that they had to learn to trust God. They had to learn to let go of what they wanted and surrender to God and His plan. They had to die to their flesh and learn to trust in God…just as we do.

So many times we face our own wilderness experiences. We step out in faith or maybe we’re even forced out of our current place in life so that God can take us to a better place, but we are immediately met with a wilderness. A dry and barren place and we are just as confused as the Israelites must have been! We think we’re going straight to our Promised Land and then God’s like, “hold up…you have to go through this first. You’ve got to learn to absolutely trust Me…no matter what.” So, we find ourselves in our own desert trying to figure out how to truly trust God. The One who most of us have spent our lives declaring that we do trust…only to figure out just how shallow that trust really is. The wilderness produces in us something that no other place can produce…absolute trust in God! Faith is forged in the fires of life and if we never experience the fire, we will never increase in our faith…

So, once the Israelites were finally allowed into the Promised Land, they were met with ease and rest, right? No! They were met with war! They were met with a ton of fighting because their enemy wasn’t just going to hand over this wonderful land to them…no, the Israelites had to fight to take possession of it! All the faith they gained in the wilderness was put to the test as they faced enemy army after enemy army. Were they going to trust that God was right beside them and would help them win? or were they going to shrink back in fear and just go back Egypt? The temptation to go back to Egypt is so hard for us to battle, isn’t it? When the promise God gave us is met with opposition after opposition — our human nature screams at us to go back! We start thinking and “remembering” that Egypt wasn’t so bad, right? We didn’t have to struggle and fight so much in Egypt, did we? We didn’t have to fight battle after battle with the enemy, did we? But what we have to remind ourselves of is this: our promised land will be worth every single battle!

The destination God has in store for us is something the enemy doesn’t want us to ever experience. He wants us to go back to Egypt — back to the bondage and lack! He wants us beat down and faithless! That’s his ultimate goal! To rob us of the promise that God has told us is rightfully ours! We have to choose to stand and fight against the enemy just as the Israelites did. We have to fight for our promised land and have faith that God will do what He’s promised He will do! Our God is a way maker! There is nothing impossible for Him! The question for us is this: Will we trust Him? Will we stay steadfast and fight until we experience every promise God has made us? I pray so…because our fulfilled promises truly are worth every single battle we face!