Day 2926 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Isaiah 43:19 NIV

"Missing You in the moment is the nature of sin."

I've had that lyric from a song by Jake Hamilton in my mind for days, and I've had absolutely no idea as to why. (Just as an aside, you have to check out his music, some of the best I've ever heard!) I've not even listened it in a few weeks, if not longer. But then I shared yesterday's post about God leading the Israelites through the wilderness for forty years and how they basically fought and complained and whined the whole way.

And this morning it finally hit me as to why that line has been on repeat in my head: We do the same thing. All. The. Time.

So many times we opt to see ourselves as the good little Christian children who always do as they're told, never talk back to our Father, and simply enjoy every moment of every day as they're all always filled with nothing but joy and comfort and this peaceful easy feeling that leaves only a smile on our faces and an excited hope in our hearts and a joyous anticipation of yet another lovely, picture-perfect day tomorrow.

Wrong.

We're not the humbly obedient followers of Christ that we try to make ourselves out to be. Instead, we're often much the same as those stubborn and complacent Israelites who just wanted to go back to the homes they'd left behind back in Egypt. We too just want to go back to the homes we've carved out within the ruts that afforded us this semblance of success as we had mastered them and found enough comfort and enjoyment within them to make them seem okay, good enough, just fine, completely acceptable.

But as we discussed yesterday, why is okay always such an intriguing option? Why is it that we're always so willing to consider what's only ever been good enough? What is it about our lives lived so far that has us at best slightly disinterested in changing and at worst completely unwilling to do so? What have we found, done, accomplished, seen, heard, felt, or won that is so absolutely astounding that we're always kind of hesitant to let go?

What it is about our normal perspectives and priorities that has us almost eternally focused on continuing to live by them? What have they done for us?

To my knowledge, and please do correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the lives we've lived so far that led us to our knees at the rock bottom of the darkness of who we've been that led us to cry out to Jesus to invade our hearts with His light and lead us back to life from the death we finally realized we'd always lived?

Is it not the normal way of life, the rutted-out routines, the complacent commonalities that we finally had enough of as they simply never gave us anything better than what we’ve already found and felt? Isn’t it our old normal that we wanted so desperately to change that we actually, at least momentarily, considered making some rather radical changes even though we by nature despise changing?

If we were at one time so desperate for change, for hope, for freedom, then why is it that we keep pulling back from or arguing with the very One who came to help? If our pasts were so miserable that we hit our knees and begged for both forgiveness from them and mercy found in the opportunity to leave them behind, then why do we still hold this weird affinity for them? What is it about the prisons we've always known that has us toying with the idea of breaking back in?

But again, we don't see it that way do we? We've become so good at focusing on only the good and ignoring all that isn't that we likely can't even see that we are in fact the only ones who are causing any and all of the problems and struggles and doubts and contentions and consternations that we always seem to be grappling with. We seriously probably can't even understand that God is doing some amazing things in our lives, and has even more planned ahead, all because we keep allowing our faith to be mixed with fear.

And that's the part that I don't know too many of us would readily admit. We're the tough Christians who are ready to storm into battle and lay down our lives and refuse to give in and all this other egotistical stuff that you hear about from this circle all the time. But no, no my friends, I’m sorry but we're not. We're not the perfect Christians we do everything we can to portray ourselves to be. We're not the ones who are immune to doubt or confusion. We're not the ones who never question or get angry. We're not the ones ready to lay it all down.

Why? Because we still have plenty of days where we're angrier with God than with anything or anyone else. We have times when we're just fed up and frustrated on continuing to wait for these "good things" that we hear so many people talking about. We have moments when we're ready to give up, walk away, throw the towel in and fall back into the lives we've been trying to leave behind.

Not because we know they're better, but because we know they're easier. We know they're quicker. We know what they are and so we don't have to struggle and strive to figure them out. And maybe most importantly, we don't have to wait for them. We don't have to keep clinging to these breadcrumbs that seem to only lead us further into the desert. We don't have to walk by faith, and at times, the sound of that sounds like the sweetest of tunes to our ears.

But what's arguably the saddest part of all this back and forth that we cause in our faith is that we're causing ourselves to miss it. We're causing ourselves to miss seeing the good that God is doing. We're causing ourselves to miss feeling the rebirth and renewal and regeneration that wake us up every single morning just because we wake up already in a sideways mood because we expect today to be the same as yesterday, and we've all but given up hope on tomorrow being any different either.

We keep missing out on our chance to witness God being God and His fulfilling of the promises He's promised us, all because we spend all this time arguing about the way He's doing it and the time that it's taking to be done.

Missing God in the moment is what opens us up to sinning against Him. When we allow our eyes to shift back to that endless pile of arguments and excuses to be angry, we will miss seeing the new things that He is doing. Just like those Israelites all those years ago. All they could allow themselves to see was the wasteland. All they could see was the fact that the sand ahead of them just kept going. All they could see was the struggle that seemed unending.

They couldn't allow themselves to see the water flowing from the rock. They couldn't allow themselves to appreciate the manna every morning. They lost interest in the pillar of cloud by day and the fire at night. They lost sight of the promise of the Promised Land, and even worse, they lost sight of the One who had worked all those miracles to break them free and set them on the pathway to that Promised Land.

All because it was harder than they wanted it to be. The manna wasn't what they wanted to eat. The one rock that broke open and gave them water to drink wasn't good enough. The promise of a distant hope wasn't enough. Because they couldn't see it. Because they wouldn't see it.

Tell me that we don't do the same thing in our walk of faith along this hard road that seems never ending toward a promise that often seems always just out of sight. It is the exact same predicament we find ourselves in so often still today. God is working miracles and sending blessings and making a way through this land of the lost. But all we see is the bleak journey still to go. All we see is all that this narrow road lacks. And when all we will allow ourselves to see is what this road lacks, we will undoubtedly miss all the blessings it holds.

Every single day of this journey is filled with both God's goodness and our chance to deny it. Every step of this road is paved with both His provision and our opportunity to be ungrateful for it. Every moment of this life spent following Christ is laden with blessings and bereavements. It's just up to us which we choose to focus on.

Make no mistake, He is doing a new thing. Every single day! He is doing a good work in us, even if we refuse to allow ourselves to acknowledge it. He is leading us to and through the changes we need to make to leave Egypt behind once and for all, even if we hate having to change. He is walking with us every moment of every day leading us closer and closer to the ultimate promise of His Promised Land. But we have to choose to walk with Him every moment of every day that leads us closer and closer to the ultimate promise of His Promised Land.

Because this is our choice. This is our life. This is our faith. And like it or not, we are 110% responsible for the way it goes, and for just how difficult and painful it ends up being.

My point is that while yes, we are walking through the desert at times in this life, there are streams if only we choose to see them. Even though we will face challenges, we can always rejoice at that fact that we don't have to face them alone. Although life down here won't always be perfect, we can always remember that what awaits us at the finish line is the only perfection that really matters. Because it's the only promise that lasts forever!

Friends, I think we can all agree that eternity in the Promised Land that is Heaven is in fact the ultimate hope. But we should all also be able to agree that missing out on seeing the things that He's doing along the road home is a true shame. Missing out on watching His work unfold in our lives is truly unfortunate, because it doesn't have to be missed. We don't have to miss out on seeing all that He's doing. We just usually do because it's not exactly what we think He should be doing at the moment.

We have to understand that this is all for Him as this is all from Him. The fact that any of this grace and goodness has anything to do with us is simply undeserved and therefore a true miracle by all accounts. This is His story for His glory and we'd all do very well to remember that. It's not about what makes us comfortable, what makes us happy, what fulfills the often hopeless and hollow desires that we've learned to settle for craving.

This is about a God who created a people who rejected Him and turned away from Him and fashioned lives that mocked Him and denied Him and did everything possible to desecrate His dominion. And it's about the fact that He wouldn't let our hatred of Him become His hatred of us. Make no mistake, He hates what we've become, but that's why He sent Christ to save us from our self-created downfall.

Sadly, people even missed that back in Jesus' day. They missed finding the faith that He came to offer them. They missed the healing that He performed for others. They missed the Promised Land because they held their doubt more tightly than their humility. The Israelites did it. The Pharisees did it. And sadly, we still do it too.

That's what has to change my friends. If we truly wish to follow Christ, we have to stop coming up with reasons or excuses not to. If we truly wish to live a life in service of Him, we have to stop trying to serve ourselves. And if we truly wish to one day enter His rest in His promise, then we have to stop coming up with our own promises and trying to rest on or run from or refuse to follow the road that leads us to Him.

Will that road be hard? Yes it will. Will our lives down here be very different from what we selfishly want them to be? Yes they will. But will that road and these lives be filled with opportunities to see God in action and to increase our faith and to learn to trust and to learn to let go? Yes, yes they most certainly will.

It's all on us as to whether or not we see what He's doing. He's doing it either way, and He's doing it all the time. If we can't perceive it, it's safe to say that the problem is ours. He's never stopped fulfilling His promises. I think we’ve just allowed ourselves to become a little too focused on the biggest of them, and in turn, we’ve sadly caused ourselves to miss out on witnessing Him fulfill all the others that He's given us already.

The destination will in fact be incredible. But the little trials and opportunities and changes along the way are what all add up to a faith that’s strong enough to make it home. And all of the little blessings that are often taken for granted are little reminders of just how good and just how faithful He truly is. Please don’t miss any of this. It’s all there for a reason. And that reason is to help us learn to lean in Him rather than simply falling back into what we’ve already found.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold