Have you ever made that prayer to God? You know the one, show me my path, what do you want me to do, Lord? And he gives you an answer. He puts it on your heart that you should do ________. You’re excited, and over joyed that you have your direction. It goes ok at first a few difficulties but we expected this right? But then those few difficulties become more difficulties and they become harder and more complicated difficulties.
Now you start to question did you misunderstand? Did God not want me to do this? You question yourself, you pray, but God seems to be silent. You feel lost, and maybe even angry. Why would God put me on this journey if He didn’t want me to do this? Sometimes we give up and we walk away without ever realizing the reward He was preparing us for. The truth of the matter is, God never said it would be easy. In FACT he tells us quite the opposite and it is in those moments of greatest doubt and fear we have to remember that.
Toil and Hard Work
In Genesis 3:17, right after original sin takes place. God comes to see Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He discovers they have sinned by eating the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. “To Adam he said, ‘Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
If that is not obvious evidence that we will work HARD all the days of our life, then I don’t know what is! Its easy to gloss over these words and think about only farming. But that was the way it was back then. Commerce hadn’t developed yet. They literally were surviving every day of their life. Just because our technology has advanced doesn’t mean that our toil and troubles go away. God said we would experience thorns and thistles and it will be by the sweat of our brow that we will earn our living.
Giants in the Land
Now let us fast forward to when the Israelites were being lead out of Egypt to the promised land, a journey that would have taken only 11 days if it wasn’t for their doubt and unfaithfulness to the Lord. They arrive at the promised land and the group decides to send spies ahead of them to see what the land has to offer, what kind of fortifications there were and the type of people they will be up against. So they send 12 spies in. Oh the land is beautiful, it is flowing with milk and honey as promised! But they have high walls, and there are GIANTS IN THE LAND. The people’s hearts melted and they forgot that God was with them. Caleb and Joshua speak up and tell the people the following, “If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing of milk and honey, and will give it to us. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will devour them. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them” (Numbers 14:8-9).
God is with Us
Despite these encouraging words the people lost heart and they wandered the wilderness for 40 years. God needed for the generation with the slave mentality to die off so that he could raise a new generation that would fight. Doesn’t it feel the same way for us when we lose heart and we doubt the path the Lord gave us? Don’t we find ourselves stuck wandering from one big idea to the next trying to figure out what the Lord wants, but we keep wanting it to be easy.
Instead of persevering in our path the Lord gave us and trusting him that even during the hard times HE IS THERE with us and He will see us through, we give up, walk away, and get angry at God for taking us on a journey to certain failure. When if we would have only pushed on we would have made it to our promised land.
Little by Little
Finally, we get to the end of the journey. Moses has delivered the Israelites to the Jordan River. Just beyond the river awaits promised land. Before he dies he delivers a speech to remind them of all that they have been through and all that God promises his people. This is the book of Deuteronomy.
In Deuteronomy 7:22 Moses reminded the Israelites that, “The Lord your God will drive out those nations before you, little by little. You will not be allowed to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals will multiply around you.” So once again, God never said it would be easy. He said I will be there with you. You will take the land a little at a time, because if I were to give it to you all at once you would have new troubles and worries to deal with.
Much like our own journeys that we pray for. He helps us over each obstacle a little at a time until we take the promised land. When we forge quickly ahead without God, new troubles arise. We are an impatient people, and we don’t see the path in front of us. We hit obstacles and we lose heart. Then we doubt what we are doing and then we wander.
Obstacles are there to test our faith, they are there to build perseverance for us to become strong and faithful servants to the Lord. Do not lose hope or let satan in to distract you from the journey God has given you. The journey to YOUR promised land. God never said it would be easy.
Other Resources
I hope you have a blessed week, and this post resonates with you. Check out my Freebies page for Scripture Quotes from this post to help remind you that God never said it would be easy. Also check out my post “Don’t Give the Enemy a Seat at Your Table,” for more helpful content.
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