“Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” (Numbers 14:3 NIV)
After over a year in the wilderness between Egypt and Canaan, some of the Israelites had laid eyes on the Promised Land. It was a good land; fertile, lovely, and unfortunately inhabited. Twelve spies went in, ten came back with a bad report. Two insisted that the people of God could take the land. Who was believed? The bad news, of course. By the nightfall, the whole camp is in an uproar. People are weeping and begging to go back to Egypt again.
Honestly, it’s easy to read this text and point fingers. Why were God’s people so weak-willed? Why couldn’t they recall God’s past performance record with them? Hadn’t He swept away the Egyptian army only a year ago? How is it His promises were so fleeting for these folks?
We forget that the Israelites are typical God-followers. They have a tendency to believe the bad report, they look back with longing and they shrink away from God’s calling.
We can’t throw stones. When we examine our own stories, we can identify the same sort of behavior. We get worked over by bad news; our facebook feed often leaves us frenzied. We long to go back to easier seasons of life, we hastily repaint our pages of personal history as happy. We pull back from the fantastic calling of our God; going into the world and making disciples because it seems too big and too dangerous.
Our days are like toothpaste, though. Once squeezed from the tube, we can never return. Even if we could physically go back, we aren’t the same people. Longing for a bygone era is a waste of our paste and we only get so much to work with. When it’s gone, it’s gone.
We need to keep moving forward because God has give us a specific directive. If we look back, it needs to be in quick, purposeful glances. We survey our story to gain confidence in God’s goodness and gather motivation to move ahead.
Moses had Kingdom perspective but it may have taken him 120 years to gain it. Perched on the edge of the Promised Land, his last words were full of rightful remembrance and white-hot hope for the days to come.
“Blessed are you, Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord? He is your shield and helper and your glorious sword. Your enemies will cower before you and you will tread on their heights.” (Deuteronomy 33:29 NIV)
Moses never gave up on the promises of God, even when he passed on before their completion. What an example he sets for us! He kept walking in obedience all the way up to the finish line. We waste time looking back, longing for the past to be our present again. We have today and we spend it well when we walk in obedience, taking the ground as the Lord directs.
“But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.” (Hebrews 10:39 NIV)
Lord, we have such a tendency to believe the bad report and look back with longing. Forgive us. Redirect us. Equip us with Your Spirit. Give us courage to step forward into the great and glorious promises You are calling us to. Amen.