Day 2360 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.
Exodus 14:12 NIV
This is another one that has really stuck with me as I've been reading through Exodus. And it's one that I've been guilty of more times than I can count, even recently. Here the Israelites are complaining to Moses about the journey they're on and how much harder it is than they want it to be. God has brought them out of slavery in Egypt and is leading them to the promised land through the desert. Little food. Little water. Little comfort. And obviously dwindling hope. Tell me you haven't been there hundreds of times!
We are really bad about complaining. No matter what the circumstance is that we're facing we can find something bad to whine about. I don't know if it's because we always want what's easy. Maybe it's because we're used to seeing the bad in everything. Or perhaps it's combination of both along with a myriad of other things. Whatever it is it only blinds us to the fact that God is faithful and that He has proven that over and over again in our lives. But we only worry about the here and now. We only consider what we're going through at this very moment and how we feel about it. And doing that only makes it harder to find the courage to keep going. This journey doesn't always look easy. So if we go by what we can see, then we're likely to turn and run!
Yes we are excited about God's promises for us. They're better than anything we could hope for. But sometimes those promises take time. Sometimes they are hidden at then end of a very long and very rough road. Sometimes they require us to go through some hard times where we're forced to trust in Him because nothing makes sense. Sometimes His promises require us to leave things behind that seemed okay, that seemed good enough in the hope that there is something better. Faith isn't easy because it forces us to live outside of our comfort zones and the easier life that we'd prefer. But it's always worth the chance, always worth the risk.
God will never lead us away from something without having a plan for something better. It might not happen right away. We might feel like we're leaving behind something decent only to wander through a wasteland instead. But we have to stop getting stuck worrying about our current situations and remember that God is always at work. We might not see it now. We might not see it for years. But God has shown us countless times before that He knows what He's doing and that He will make a way through the valleys of life to something better. We just have to trust Him.
Believe me, I firmly understand that life can start losing hope pretty fast. We don't know how things are going to work out. We don't know how we're going to make it. We start giving in to those familiar doubts that tell us that we should turn back, retreat to safety, and settle for comfort instead of the harder journey that God needs us to take. But if we settle for good enough then we will never experience His promises that are even better. If we stay where we are then that's all we'll ever know. If we allow fear and doubt to make us question our faith then we will never experience all that He has in store.
So it may be scary. Things may look dim. Money may run low. Food might be scarce. Things may not make sense at all. But that's only because we only see what's in front of us. We don't see what He's doing behind the scenes. We don't see what's coming. We don't know the plans that He has, but we should know that we can always trust in them. He has gotten us through every hard day that we've faced. He has never led us away from something without a plan to replace it with something better. He hasn't brought us this far to walk away and leave us hanging. Trust Him! Have faith. Keep walking even when it doesn't feel comfortable or easy. He knows what He's doing and we don't want to miss it!
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