Maybe it's just me...
I have this tendency to think that if I can just hang on through the current struggles, what comes next is going to be so much easier, so much better. I just have to hang on a little longer, and I'll eventually reach the Promised Land!
It's not until I reach the Promised Land, though, that I bother to consider what the Promised Land actually looks like...
In my mind, the Promised Land looked like rest and peace and butterflies and roses. I envisioned ease and abundance and circumstances that would just magically fall into place. What I was dreaming of was not, in fact, the Promised Land. It was Fantasyland!
The children of Israel wandered for forty years in the wilderness. During those years, all they could see was the wilderness. They saw scarcity and struggle. They wallowed in misery and felt they were in want.
The reality was that the wilderness was not really scarcity. It was school. In truth, they would never again see the Lord's provision so clearly as was demonstrated for them in the wilderness. Manna - daily bread - established foundations for a faith in the God who is constant. Water from the rock demonstrated the power of the God who saw their needs and who was capable of meeting those needs, moment by moment.
When the Israelites crossed the Jordan River to enter the land of Canaan - the Promised Land - they did find abundance. They also found work. There were battles to be fought. Though God was giving them the land, they would have to fight to actually take possession of it. There were still giants in the land, and it would be generations before the giants were conquered.
It's kind of like when we were kids in school...
For me, at least, I was always looking for the next thing. In kindergarten, first grade looked great. In elementary school, the thought of middle school seemed exciting. Then middle school was just about getting ready for high school, which was going to be amazing! Obviously, high school was great because that's how it looked in all the movies!
But then I got to high school, and it was not amazing. It was work. And it was miserable. And all I wanted was to get finished with high school so I could be free to go live my life.
And so the process continued. And it continues...
Like I said at the beginning, maybe it's just me...
What I'm finding is that life is always a process. I'm constantly looking to what's next. It seems like whenever I finally get "there," I find myself "here," and "there" has moved. And while that is certainly the realistic view, I'm feeling that it's time to stop striving to get "there" and start learning to experience and enjoy "here."
Maybe you're still in the wilderness. Maybe you've reached the Promised Land. Maybe it doesn't even matter. Is one really so different from the other?
Wherever you may find yourself today, take a little lesson from the sneaker brand and "just do it." That's what I'm going to try to do today!
...Just a thought...
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