This morning I was exhausted. Even though I went to bed in good shape, a combination of being woken up several times and having bad dreams had left me feeling drained. Fortunately, God has recently been showing me the necessity of spending time with Him each day for spiritual and sometimes physical renewal, and it was apparent today that I needed some time with Him (if only I was this self-aware more often!). I started with some journaling to God, processing last night’s lack of sleep and the exhaustion I felt this morning. As I was asking for refreshment and renewal from His Word, the imagery of manna from heaven popped into my head. I considered how the exhaustion and desire for provision from God was a relational dependence similar to Israels’ need for nourishment from God during their wilderness period. I decided to spend my time there this morning in the Scriptures, and I hope these thoughts prove beneficial for others as they have for me.
First, Exodus 13:17-18; 20-22
“When Pharoah finally let the people go, God did not lead them along the main road that runs through Philistine territory, even though that was the shortest route to the Promised Land. God said, “If the people are faced with a battle, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” So God led them in a roundabout way through the wilderness toward the Red Sea. Thus the Israelites left Egypt like an army ready for battle. [...] The Israelites left Succoth and camped at Etham on the edge of the wilderness. The Lord went ahead of them. He guided them during the day with a pillar of cloud and he provided light at night with a pillar of fire. This allowed them to travel by day or by night. And the Lord did not remove the pillar of cloud or the pillar of fire from its place in front of the people.”
A couple of observations from this passage. First, God took them on the less-direct route on their way to His promises. There was a season of preparation that the Israelites needed before they would be ready for battle, and the Lord in His infinite wisdom knew this and took them through a wilderness period before battle. Even Christ, the Son of God, had a wilderness season as preparation to his earthly ministry (Luke 4:1-13). For us, sometimes we might know the destination or have plans on what God’s promises should look like for our lives or when we should receive them, but God might have other plans. In his sovereignty over all things He might know that now is not the season for you to enter into something He has promised you, and therefore He might lead you down the less-direct path to that goal, in order to prepare you to receive it. Second, the Lord went ahead of them during their time in the wilderness, and never left them. He guided them with clouds and with fire so that they could continue on their journey regardless of circumstances. God never asks us to go in a direction that He is not willing to lead us through, and He never abandons us along that path either. I think its important to note that God expects them to not only travel during the day, but expects or anticipates that they will have to travel by night as well. I don’t claim this next part to be the best interpretation of the passage, but it has helped me so I will share it. During our wilderness journey, we will experience darkness and light. Some days on our journey might be good or easy (daytime) and other times might be confusing, difficult and scary (night). Regardless, God is ahead of us, and will lead us no matter what. He will guide us in the daytime, or light our paths at night with His presence.
One final observation. As I thought about the seasons of wilderness travel that all of us as believers endure during periods of our life (I am most certainly going through one now), something bigger dawned upon me. “It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going. And even when he had reached the land God had promised him, he lived there by faith-for he was like a foreigner, living in tents [...] Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city built with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God [...] All these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it from a distance and welcomed it. They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth. Obviously people who say such things are looking forward to a country they can call their own. If they had longed for the country they had come from, the could have gone back. But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” -Hebrews 11:8-10;13-16
What I realized when reading this was, even though we go through specific wilderness experiences, life as a whole is one big wilderness season! That might sound discouraging, but only without the lenses of an eternal perspective. Israel spent a season in the wilderness that was drastically shorter in comparison to the time they occupied the Promised Land. Our life here is not separate from our life in heaven, one is the continuation of the other! Our earthly life is like the length of a shadow before the sun sets when compared to all of eternity in heaven! Even if our life here is all in wilderness, its nothing in the light of eternity! That’s not to say that life here will be constant misery, because God does provide happiness and joy in the journey, and he does answer promises on this side of heaven too. But to mistake those joys and fulfillment as the goal or the destination is to lose sight of our foreign status here on this fallen earth. Look at Abraham! God promised him a land for his descendents, and even allowed Abraham the privilege of settling there for a while, but did he build a city or put down roots, as if all of God’s promises had been fulfilled? By no means! “for he was like a foreigner, living in tents” (11:9). Abraham reconized that God’s true Promised Land lay beyond the veil between heaven and earth, and so he stayed nomadic until he reached his destination. Through all of this, the one thing I hope we can take from this and apply to our lives is to see life as a wilderness journey. Sure, there are trials and seasons in the wilderness that are a wilderness in and of themselves, but once we come through them we must keep moving. Hopefully, this motivates you when times get tough, because “our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!” (2 Cor. 4:17)
Filed under: Reflections
