"It is [only] eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea [on Canaan's border; yet Israel took forty years to get beyond it]." -The Greatest Love Story Ever Told
It took 40 years for the Israelites to complete an 11 day mission (or journey.)
Have you ever been frustrated because it seems no matter how hard you try, you cannot seem to get beyond a certain point in your career, income level, revenue or sales goals; You cannot seem to get beyond a certain point in your marriage or health and things seem hopelessly lost?
We have all been there:
· Imagine being in slavery, then thrown in prison by wrongful conviction for 13 years.
· Imagine being a prince, on the backside of the desert, in a dead end job watching sheep for 40 years.
· Imagine stunning the kingdom by killing the biggest giant (Goliath), being anointed the next king, but not yet crowned (with the title) for 13 years.
· Imagine working on a secular job for 30 years knowing you are called to miracles (in ministry.)
· Imagine being on a porch, near a pool, waiting for the troubling of water to get healed for 38 years.
These are all examples of individuals that went through the same thing.
Some went through and built character and preparation. One wasted his life in complacency.
How long has it taken you to get beyond your greatest fear; to get beyond the borders where giants, walled cities and big dreams live?
Moses told his people in verse 6: "The Lord our God said to us in Horeb, You have dwelt long enough on this mountain. Turn and take up your journey...Behold, I have set the land before you; go in and take possession of the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their descendants after them."
You don't have to waste your life away in the same place for the next 40 years. If you will change TODAY, God will change your future (and the destiny of generations that rely on you.)
You were created to root and drive out nations "stronger and mightier" than you. That means, if its not bigger than anything you have accomplished before, it is not the divine call of God.
38 years prior to the above passage, the Israelites were traveling in the wilderness and thought they just stumbled upon a walled and fortified city called Jericho by chance. There were giants in the land and they felt like they were grasshoppers in comparison, so they refused to go up and possess the land.
But God had set the land before them.
Today, you must be careful that the relationship, promotion, job or business opportunity that you refuse to fight for is not one that God has set before you.
One decision not to walk by faith, cost Joshua's predecessors God's best life and 38 years of failed promises wandering in a desert.
The opposite of living God's promised life is wandering in a wilderness (of bad decisions, circles, barrenness and unfruitfulness etc.)
Then Moses gave the Israelites a glimpse of the promise being fulfilled right before their eyes in verses 10-11:
"The Lord your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are this day as the stars of the heavens for multitude. May the Lord, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you as He has promised you!"
GOD WANTS TO MAKE YOU A THOUSAND TIMES MORE THAN WHAT HE PROMISED YOU.
He wants to make that marriage, family, business, career or ministry a thousand times more than what it IS right now.
Remember in Genesis 15:1,5, when Abraham was childless, hopeless without an inheritance, God appeared to him in a vision saying:
"Fear not, Abram, I am your Shield, your abundant compensation, and your reward shall be exceedingly great. And He brought him outside [his tent into the starlight] and said, Look now toward the heavens and count the stars--if you are able to number them. Then He said to him, So shall your descendants be."
Yet he was old, didn't have one child and his wife was barren. This chapter is really an amazing chapter as it shows God telling Abram of things to come despite his current disposition. Then God then gives a Word to him for his future descendants in verses 13-14:
"And [God] said to Abram, Know positively that your descendants will be strangers dwelling as temporary residents in a land that is not theirs [Egypt], and they will be slaves there and will be afflicted and oppressed for 400 years. [Fulfilled in Exod. 12:40.] But I will bring judgment on that nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with great possessions."
God will bring judgment on all that oppress you when you serve those in AUTHORITY with a right heart; and afterwards you will come out with great possessions.
But when you fear man, you distrust God and cannot see miracles happen.
Today, what place in your life, leadership, career, skills and authority have you remained long enough?
Where is God challenging you to turn and elevate your journey or legacy on that job, industry or city?
A fortified wall is falling down flat today.
If you remain faithful, as much as you have had a Pharaoh in your life, you will have an exodus and come out of your circumstance with more than what you came in with.
God supernaturally sustained His people in a land that was unsustainable...
"Neither said they, Where is the LORD that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt?" (Jeremiah 2:6)
Likewise, no matter what your life looks life right now, God can sustain you in what is seemingly unsustainable (the national economy, your annual salary, that broken marriage or family etc.)
The wilderness was supposed to kill them, yet so was Egypt. But when you defy the enemy once, you always are presented with an opportunity to "repeat" as champion again.
