Real Hope: Discovering Hope in the Life of MosesSample

Trudging in the Wilderness with God

READ DEUTERONOMY 2:1–7

Have you ever felt like you were going around the same mountain again and again? We need to be careful of circling because it gives the illusion of progress, but you haven’t gone anywhere! The opportunity to enter the land and conquer it, and possess it, is given again to the Israelites. You have skirted this mountain long enough; turn northward (v3). God was saying, ‘That’s enough’; it was time to stop the grumbling, the doubt, and the fear. The fulfilment of His promise was steps away, and it was time to stop choosing familiarity over freedom. And yet, even with the rebellious hearts of the children of Israel, we see the tender mercy of God in Deuteronomy 2:7 as the Lord expressed His care for Israel during the forty years of trudging through the wilderness.

Very few people would consider the wilderness a place of plenty, yet the wilderness was the place where God furnished Israel ‘a table’ (Psalm 78:19), ‘brought streams also out of the rock’ (Psalm 78:16), and kept their shoes and clothes from deteriorating (Deuteronomy 29:5). God could honestly say to His people, though they wandered in a barren land, they ‘lacked nothing’ (Deuteronomy 2:7). God is aware of our ‘trudging’ through life. He witnesses the pains and tribulations that will occur. But He does not observe from afar. He is with us and in us, giving us the endurance we require. So, if God has told you to do something or given you a promise, allow the time going around the mountain to be a time of refinement to strengthen you to cross over to your promised land.

Written by HEIDI WYSMAN