The Wilderness

As I am finishing reading through the Bible in a year, I have been reading about the Israelites and their journey to the Promised Land.  It's interesting to me that the 7 day (or so) journey took them 40 years.  Of course sitting here I can offer many suggestions and wisdom to them.  Stop complaining, trust God, stay on course, don't look back, and "Do you really think He brought you here to leave you to die?"  But then I look at my own life, the patterns that have been developed, and have the same advice for myself.  Without going into specific examples, I have seen the same issues come up time and again, but at different places and with different people.  The same problems I encounter come up over and over again, until I finally learn what it is I am being taught.  Oh how I wish I could just learn the lesson the first time, master it, and not return to the same mountain.  God is in the process of training us to be conformed to His image.  So He uses people and situations in our lives to develop these character traits.  Once learned, we don't have to go through the painful process of relearning.  We simply apply His wisdom and show patience, love, kindness, or whatever it was we learned. 

Right now my husband and I are in a faith test, again.  We went through a multi-faith test back in 2007.  Several issues came up at once, and we applied our faith in God and His plans for us.  One by one the miracles happened.  But for some reason, that is not always the case.  We lose sight of the end and focus on the trials we are going through.  We really believe that He has placed us on this course.  We have prayed and sought His wisdom every step of the way.  But for some reason, the timing is turning out to be different than we anticipated.  In 2007 things happened, boom boom boom.  No waiting at all.  But we didn't know it would turn out that way going in.  It just happened that there was no waiting.  Now we have been here for over a year and are about where we started.  What a faith test!  So do we give up and return to Egypt?  No.  Should we worry that He will not provide for us?  No, He said He will "meet all of our needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus".  I believe God for each days' supply of manna.  It is so hard to not look at tomorrow and wonder if there will be manna for us.  But He is already in our tomorrow, waiting with our daily supply.  And we have a direct command from Jesus to not "worry about tomorrow". 

I am applying my faith, believing God will see us through to the end.  And I am going to finish with the lessoned learned, not to repeat this lesson again. 

In Christ,

Kerry