Forty years of wilderness wandering plagued the Israelites because they listened to the report of ten spies instead of God’s promise to give them the promised land. They had experienced God’s miraculous works for their deliverance, yet still, rather than believing God’s promise and facing their enemies with faith, they were caught up in human deception and discouragement.
The giants occupying their land were huge and the enemies were strong, the challenge too dangerous, the risk too great. They refused to move out and take possession for fear of their lives.
They wept and wailed through their night with bitterness! They complained and grumbled about their plight! Why did we leave Egypt? We’ll die in this forlorn land! Shouldn’t we just go back? Wouldn’t it be better? Be safer? Wouldn’t it just be easier back in captivity? Those unfaithful, unbelieving, grumbling Israelites twenty years and older never made it into the land of promise because God saw to it that their unbelief would not be honoured.
Oh, the wilderness wanderings we face when we focus on deception instead of truth. When we focus on the giants instead of the promises; when we rebel instead of trust!
You know it don’t you? The wilderness of rebellion, unbelief, deception and despair? Does your old slavery and bondage to sin just seem more comfortable, easier, and safer than trusting God for deliverance? We need to move on out and take what God has promised through trust, while He still gives opportunity. Courage is found when we take God at His word and trust him even though the giants are many and the tasks impossible.
I wonder who we hear? The reports of people or the Lord’s promises to us.?
1 Corinthians 10:11
“For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”
#soulnotestoself #soulnote
Sin plays its game well, not smart but well. I’ve witnessed its evil gain a foothold in churches, where leaders would rather turn a blind eye than rock the boat with truth. The thing is, to surface the reality of wrong with truth in confrontation only serves to bring on a form of politics, gaining of power, support and a form of horrendous persecution. Yeah, not the ‘gallows’ type of threat and physical torture but the power, politics, gossip, lies, threats, and unbelief, paired with emotional and verbal abuse is a form of gallows that kill by crushing the spirit and grinding it into the dirt. It’s a form of abuse not becoming to the ‘spiritual’ leaders dishing it out. Yet it happens! Sin rules our cultures our societies, our world and sadly, our own lives if we succumb to self and as the prophet Jeremiah, reminds us of our wretched state, through the LORDS own words of wisdom in Jeremiah 17:9,
So, friends, in our wretched sin-sick world, in our wretched sin-sick state, only God knows just how deceitful we can be. Yes, it touches our lives, our families and our ministries! It plants its seed of lies, and deceit and builds pedestals of pride with power and money and off it goes on a wild tangent in cahoots with a wicked heart or two in tow, beckoning to its every call and bowing to its every selfish whim. 
Yeah, I get that it’s a narrow way to walk but it’s safe there in His keeping. It’s the safest place you can be when the winds howl and storms blow! So you and I and we and us let’s accept that glass castles shatter, that pedestals fall, that power goes out and still realize with every once of faith that we can muster, that Sin will sadly have its way in this world, but our Saviour is still the victory One and still ‘all for us’, not against us. Let’s be challenged to keep our eyes fixed on the Sovereign God in charge and not on the man, the pedestals or the sin that can so easily entangle.
Those unfaithful, unbelieving, grumbling Israelites twenty years and older never made it into the land of promise because God saw to it that their unbelief would not be honoured.
We need to move on out and take what God has promised through trust, while He still gives opportunity. Courage is found when we take God at His word and trust Him even though the giants are many and the tasks impossible. I wonder who we hear? The reports of people or the Lord’s promises to us.
1 Corinthians 10:11
I sat and chatted with the Pastor in the early morning hours over that first cup of coffee and we talked over some of the issues of these strange days. There are many aren’t there? We’ve been through lockdown, quarantine, phases one, two and three of re-opening and now, with twin-demic threats of both flu and COVID, it seems we’re well on our way to a possible second lockdown if proper steps aren’t taken.
A few months ago, the world seemed fine and wonderful to those of us who lived in the old “normal” of things. Travel was unbridled and unchecked as we quickly made our way from point A to point B in short order without much thought other than we were in control of the situation, our lives and our future. We partied without thought and joined in festivities at home and abroad socializing in close quarters without any threat or fear of endangering those in our circles of influence. Yeah, a few short months ago, we, the people, pretty much did what we, the people, wanted to do without restrictions, no strings attached. Thing is, things are different now and so the new “normal” is now the old world sitting on a tight shoestring, dangling on the edge of the precipice, and we, the people, are left wondering what’s next, what’s truth and what’s around the corner?
So many questions and not too many answers meet us in our morning and walk us through our days. Thoughts that taunt and tease and strike fear into the very heart and soul of us. Big men of faith, who we’ve followed and perhaps put on pedestals speak out loud and clear to sometimes confuse the issues even more and we can choose to follow them or not, maybe to our ruin, or we can turn to the only One who knows for certain. The only One who holds the world in His care and keeping. The only One who holds this whole, old world in His hands and carries us over these uncertain days. The One Sovereign God who loaned us His only Son, and gave Him up in death to bring us absolute Truth, Life, forgiveness and salvation, comfort and peace. So yeah, these days, we can run to men for feel-good answers and comfort words to tickle our ears, with sweet pleasantries! We can criticize government powers and what they stand for, and what they mandate, but somewhere along the way, we, the people, do have to get it, that the only source of comfort comes from the only source of Truth.
Jesus, said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6! So you there, sitting on the other side of this screen, You seek Him out for yourself! Hear Him out! Let His words permeate that socially bankrupt soul of yours! Let Him be your friend in your isolation and let Him help you find your way and bring you real-life for the days ahead. It’s only in our Sovereign God we can find the comfort, relief, peace and joy that we so need right now and know with discernment any kind of Truth.
Hope and Healing In Hard Places 