Wednesday, October 18, 2017

8 Days or 40 years?


Before beginning today I need to confess something.   This is not original with me.  If you live in Central Virginia and listen to the Journey (88.3) and happened to be listening to Amanda you heard this.

Amanda said her pastor said that it should have taken the people of Israel 8 days to get to the promised land.  I googled it and some people say it should have taken 3-4 days.   Instead it took them 40 years.  The promised land was eight days away and it took 40 YEARS!   Read the story and you will see some of the reasons why.  They complained.  They argued.  They didn’t trust their leaders.  They did a lot of whining.  They lacked faith that God would really get them there.  I’m sure there are many other reasons you could find if you studied that story.

For the sake of applying this to our daily lives, does God have a promised land for you on THIS side of heaven?  Does he have a life that he wants you to live that is full, rich and meaningful?  Is it just eight days from where you are right now?

All of us need to ask God about this land that He has for us.  We need to avoid the pitfalls that the people of Israel were caught up in …. “Throwing off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12).

Would it be an incredible waste of a life to wander around in the desert of selfishness, ingratitude, negativity, conflict, when the life God has promised us is just an eight day walk away?


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