Faith & the Wilderness

My attitude was and still is like that of David, who was ashamed that the armies of Israel would tremble before Goliath. Without hesitation he stepped forward with complete confidence in the God who had proven Himself to be faithful (1 Sam 17). For David, the size of the giant was irrelevant.  Dave Hunt

One of the interesting things about faith is that each of us will end up in the wilderness.  If we look back to the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, we can see how little faith they had in what God could do.  They were enslaved in Egypt but when God sent Moses to release them from bondage they ended up in the wilderness.  What did they do when they got there?  They moaned and complained.  In fact in Exodus 16:3 they express how faithless they truly were; “Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full!  For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” 

What I find fascinating about this is that God heard their complaints and provided food for them so that the children of Israel would know that He is God.  The problem was they still didn’t listen to Him.  Through Moses God told them to only gather what they would need for one day.  Many didn’t have faith that God would provide the next day, so they gathered more than what they needed for the day and when they woke up the next morning, everything had spoiled.
 
We are guilty of the same thing.  We don’t believe that God will provide for our needs so we are like the rich man who gathered his crops and when they filled his barn, he built bigger barns.  Fear becomes our companion and we live by it instead of having faith that God will provide.  To me faith is like parachuting from an airplane.  You go up in the plane and stand in the doorway of the plane with your feet hanging over the edge trying to get the nerve up to jump.  If you are going to jump from a plane you better know who packed your parachute.
 
Faith in God is not for the faint of heart.  If we are to know the kind of faith we need to survive in this life we need to know and believe the promises of God.  Hebrews 4:1-3 Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.  For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest.”

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, my wilderness is not really much different from the wilderness the children of Israel experienced so long ago.  They time was different, but the circumstances are the same.  I complain over things I do not have when You have already provided what I truly need.  Remind me daily that my faith in You will be tested on this earth, and help me to have the kind of faith that will help me enter Your rest.      

      

Scripture: Be Faithful

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:

“Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways.’  So I swore in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest.’” Hebrews 3:7-11