Throughout the Bible, God tells us to trust and obey. When we trust the Lord, He can take us and use us in glorious ways! Simply, when we honor and obey Him, we are blessed, and He is glorified! There’s no better example of this than when God took the Israelites from slavery to freedom, from Egypt to the Promised Land—the land of milk and honey.
But I said to you, “You will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey.” I am the Lord your God, who has set you apart from the nations.” Leviticus 20:24
Not only did God tell Israel where He was taking them, but He also provided protection and guided them on the journey. Through the desert and wilderness, everything was given to them. (“By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night.” Exodus 13:21) Upon arrival, Moses sent some scouts to check out the land to confirm it was all the Lord said it was! Clearly, it was because God can’t lie! When the scouts returned, they confirmed it was all and more of what God said it would be. What was unexpected were the fortified wall and the giants. So, they began to doubt God’s Word!
Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” Numbers 13:30-33
Despite all that the Lord had done for the Israelites up to this point, and His promise to provide and never forsake them (“And I will live among the Israelites and will not abandon my people Israel.” 1 Kings 6:13), they began to doubt the very word of God! In the midst of a desert of provisions, they grumbled, and their thoughts turned to the land they had left, Egypt, from which God had delivered them in a miraculous way!
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 16:3
Despite being a barren desert, the comfort and safety of the current setting no doubt looked better than setting out in faith to do God’s will! Even with all that God had done for them, their doubt and unwillingness to step out in faith and trust in the Lord turned a complete blessing into a curse. Instead of reaching the land of milk and honey as their destination, they now faced a wilderness experience until God removed a generation of doubters.
The Israelites had moved about in the wilderness forty years until all the men who were of military age when they left Egypt had died, since they had not obeyed the LORD. For the LORD had sworn to them that they would not see the land he had solemnly promised their ancestors to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. Joshua 5:6
Unfortunately, the Israelites preferred the perceived safety of the desert to the uncertainty of paradise! What started out in doubt turned to disobedience! They preferred staying in their comfort zone, fishing for minnows from their boat at their dock, rather than venturing into the challenging ocean with waves, where the actual fish were!
Like the Israelites, God desires to bless you and me! But blessings are often cut short because of us not doing His will! Why? Cause we doubt! Our stepping out in faith usually begins and ends in never doubting God’s Word! Doing God’s will is not always comfortable! But as we learn His Word and step out in faith, we gain access to His will for our lives each step we take along the way! As we step out, our faith strengthens, and His well of provision gets deeper! All too often, we live in defeat of doubt, never trusting God fully!
Remember, He came to not only save us but also to bless us! His saving us is wonderful, but living in defeat is not His will! Faith not exercised is not faith at all!
Have a great weekend!
Stephen L. Thomas