Today’s devotional focuses on the Israelites travels to the Promised
Land.

Moses had grown up, watching the Israelites and seeing their hard labor
in slavery to Egypt. He felt their pain and had compassion for them.
So did God. “The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out,
and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God
heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with
Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned
about them.” Exodus 2:23-25

In Exodus 3, we see the account of God call Moses to lead the
Israelites out of Egypt and out of slavery. “The LORD said, ‘I have
indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying
out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their
suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the
Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and
spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey….So now, go. I am
sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of
Egypt.’" Exodus 3:7-8, 10

Quite a calling! But Moses was obedient. It took a long time
(possibly 20 years), but finally the Pharaoh of Egypt let the
Israelites go. The Israelites had been enslaved by the Egyptians for
430 years.

They set out with Moses, trudging across the desert, dreaming of the
freedom that was finally their’s. The freedom they were searching for
was not only freedom from slavery, but freedom to truly worship their
God, the God of the Israelites.

The positive thoughts didn’t last long, though. After only a month and
a half of traveling, the Israelites started complaining. "In the
desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The
Israelites said to them, 'If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in
Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted,
but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire
assembly to death.'" Exodus 16:2-3

After a month and a half, they were already complaining, to the point
of wishing they were dead. And we see many more examples of this in
the Scriptural account of the exodus from Egypt. As the Israelites
continued to move toward the Promised Land, they kept complained almost
every step of the way. They looked back to Egypt with longing, wishing
they could go back. The Israelites knew what Egypt held. They knew if
they went back to Egypt, they would be in slavery again, but at least
it was familiar, predictable – comfortable, in a way - but they didn’t
know what to expect in the desert. Would God really come through for
them?

As I was listening to Sara Groves's CD a few weeks ago, the lyrics of
this song really struck me.

“I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt, leaving out what it lacked
The future seems so hard and I want to go back”

How often have I found myself in this position, looking back longingly
at things I’ve left behind? How quickly I forget all God has done for
me, and how He delivered me from slavery – slavery to sin! Psalm 106
summarizes it very well: “7 When our fathers were in Egypt, they gave
no thought to your miracles; they did not remember your many
kindnesses, and they rebelled by the sea, the Red Sea…10 He saved them
from the hand of the foe; from the hand of the enemy He redeemed
them…..13 But they soon forgot what He had done and did not wait for
His counsel.

19 At Horeb they made a calf and worshiped an idol cast from metal. 20
They exchanged their Glory
for an image of a bull, which eats grass. 21 They forgot the God who
saved them, who had done great things in Egypt…..24 Then they despised
the pleasant land; they did not believe His promise.

35 They mingled with the nations and adopted their customs. 36 They
worshiped their idols, which became a snare to them....39 They defiled
themselves by what they did; by their deeds they prostituted
themselves.

43 Many times He (God) delivered them, but they were bent on rebellion
and they wasted away in their sin.”

Do you find yourself in this place? God heard our groaning and
delivered us from our slavery – not just to our sinful nature, but also
to various addictions and ungodly behaviors. We started looking back
to our old ways, our old idols, and little by little, we picked up old
habits. Why? Though God promised us freedom in Christ, but as soon as
the euphoria wore off, we began to doubt Him.

God has to continually remind the Israelites of what He’d done for them
and what He was going to do for them. “Then I said to you, ‘Do not be
terrified; do not be afraid of them. The LORD your God, who is going
before you, will fight for you, as He did for you in Egypt, before your
very eyes, and in the desert. There you saw how the LORD your God
carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until
you reached this place.’ In spite of this, you did not trust in the
LORD your God, who went ahead of you on your journey, in fire by night
and in a cloud by day, to search out places for you to camp and to show
you the way you should go." Deuteronomy 1:29-33 God fed them and went
with them every step of the way, but they still didn’t trust Him. They
still didn’t believe He’d do what He said He would.

God said, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that
you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of
your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.” Leviticus
26:13 Do we believe Him? Do we, in faith, walk with our heads held
high, believing that God is delivering us? Or do we walk with
shoulders shrugged and head down because we’ve once again picked up the
yoke that God broke for us?

“The past is so tangible; I know it by heart
Familiar things are never easy to discard
I was dying for some freedom but now I hesitate to go
Caught between the promise and the things I know”

Are we caught in that place? The place the Israelites were in? We
thought we wanted freedom, but the past is so predictable, the patterns
so easy to fall back into. Are we really willing to keep trudging
through the desert – even if we don’t know how long it will take to get
to the Promised Land?

Galatians 5:1 says, “It was for freedom that Christ set us free;
therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of
slavery.” This is a command from God. He tells us to hold our ground
and not to pick up the yoke of slavery again. It took 40 years for the
Israelites to get to the Promised Land. It may take years – or even a
lifetime – for God to complete the good work He began in you.

My challenge for you today is this: don’t fall into the trap that the
Israelites fell into. Don’t look back longingly to your old sinful
life. And trust God. Believe what is says in Philippians 1, that He
who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion. God will
do it. Trust in Him, and believe in His promises.

=====
"The lions may grow weak and hungry,
but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing."
Psalm 34:10

www.brennakate.com
www.livejournal.com/~brennakate




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