Land of Milk and Honey

So you know how in the last blog I talked about how intimate and powerful our God is? Today our preacher at First Baptist Church Tupelo hit a little on that subject. He just said that two people could read the same verse and it mean something completely different to them and how our God is a personal God.

            This morning, Chad, referenced the book of Numbers chapters 13 and 14 during his sermon. His particular sermon was how The Lord told Moses to send some men to explore the land of Canaan that he was going to give to the Israelites. When majority of the men returned back to Moses to give him a report on what they found, they gave Moses these account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak (vicious giants of that particular time) there.”-Numbers 13:27 The Israelites of this particular group referred to themselves as grasshoppers (Numbers 13:33). Chad’s sermon was about facing giants. Chad said that the Israelites minimized God and maximized the giants. How guilty am I of that? That hit home hard.

            As the story goes on, the Israelites eventually begin to panic and say, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this wilderness! Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?”-Numbers 14: 2-3. Eventually, because the Israelites didn’t obey God, they never got to see the promised Canaan. Read Numbers 14: 33-35.     You see, by Chad reading this, his particular focus was on “giants” or problems. After I read Numbers 14:2-3, I related it to my personal life. Even though God had just delivered the Israelites from bondage under Pharaoh, they still wanted to go back to that dreadful place. They didn’t trust God to keep his word and because of that, they didn’t get to experience the blessing he had prepared for them. How many times have I been guilty of “going back to the past” and wishing that I could go back???? After God had delivered me from my bondage. I don’t know about you but I want to experience milk and honey and the blessings God has prepared for me in the future. Not looking back but looking forward because I know what he has waiting for me is far more beautiful than I could ever imagine or dream of.

            What are you looking back at? What is keeping you from forgetting the bondage God delivered you from and blinding your vision so that you can’t see the blessings he has prepared for you?

Stay Salty,

Annie