Deuteronomy 1:1 – 8 “These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel in the wilderness east of the Jordan—in the Arabah opposite Suph—between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Di-zahab. It is an eleven-day journey from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea by way of Mount Seir. In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses proclaimed to the Israelites everything that the LORD had commanded him concerning them. This was after he had defeated Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and then at Edrei had defeated Og king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth.
On the east side of the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses began to explain this law, saying: The LORD our God said to us at Horeb: “You have stayed at this mountain long enough. Resume your journey and go to the hill country of the Amorites; go to all the neighboring peoples in the Arabah, in the hill country, in the foothills, in the Negev, and along the seacoast to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon, as far as the great River Euphrates. See, I have placed the land before you. Enter and possess the land that the LORD swore He would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their descendants after them.”
We are beginning a study of the Book of Deuteronomy. In this book, Moses summarizes the wanderings of the Israelites for forty years as well as recapitulating the major teachings God has given them. Remember that in the beginning, the Israelites were supposed to enter the Promised Land a few months after leaving Egypt. But when ten of the twelve spies sent to report on the land brought back the frightening information about giants in the land, the Israelites refused to enter, despite assurances from Joshua and Caleb that God would help them defeat any giants. The ten men who had misinformed the Israelites immediately died, and God told the rest of the Israelites that they would never enter the Promised Land because they had refused to believe Him; only their children would enter. But the Israelites changed their minds and tried to enter on their own, resulting in a resounding defeat. The story is told in Numbers 13 and 14. It was this refusal to believe the Lord that forced the Israelites to continue traveling in the wilderness outside the Promised Land for forty years, enough time for all the unbelievers to die off.
After the Israelites went in circles in the wilderness for a long time, God finally gave them the release to move northward so that they could eventually enter the Promised Land. Nobody knows the actual location of those wanderings, so this map represents an educated guess.
APPLICATION: Many times, we feel as if our lives are going in circles and we aren’t making any progress. We might wonder what God’s will and purposes are for our lives.
The first question we need to ask ourselves is this: have we learned everything we are supposed to from our current situation? God kept the Israelites in the desert so that He could train them to become warriors and so that He could train them in His statutes. God knew that if the Israelites were unprepared physically and spiritually when they entered Canaan, they would never conquer the people who were already there and they would also immediately revert to idolatry. As is obvious in the Book of Judges, many of the Israelites quickly turned away from God once they encountered the fertility cults of the Canaanites.
A second question is this: are we refusing to change because we are afraid? Have we become so comfortable that we are unwilling to take a risk, even though doing so might bring us into a far better way of life spiritually? It’s easy to allow the familiar to act as an anchor, weighing us down.
A final question we must ask is this: if we leave our current way of life, where are we going? Change merely for the sake of change might lead to disaster. Are we changing because God is leading us or are we changing because we are bored?
May God help us so that as we make changes, we allow Him to lead us! Only when we follow God’s leading will we find His Promised Land.
PRAYER: Father God, thank you for loving us and for caring for us. Help us to learn everything you want us to from our present situations. Help us to be willing to change when you say so and not to hold back. Thank you that Your plans for us are to give us a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11) In the matchless Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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