READING: Deuteronomy 1:1-3:20
Eleven days. A little less than two weeks. That, according to today’s reading, was the general time it took folks to travel from Mt. Sinai to Kadesh-Barnea (from the place of the law-giving to the border of the Promised Land).
Just eleven days. 264 hours.
Not in this case, however. What should have taken eleven days took the Hebrews 40 years to complete. They had been at the brink of the land years before, but their disobedience in not taking the land cost them decades of delay in repercussion for their choices. The people refused to trust the Lord their God in entering the land; then, their lack of faith led to wanderings that increased their journey by almost 40 years. One writer makes the point this way for all of us: “The journey of faith may be difficult, but it is direct. The journey of unbelief is interminable.”* Even more significantly, God’s judgment led to the deaths of an entire generation of Hebrews during those wilderness wanderings.
Today, I wonder how much my sinful choices and my faithless heart have cost me through the years. I wonder how many of God’s blessings I’ve missed because I’ve leaned on self alone or sought the temporary pleasure of sin. I do know I’ve wandered on my own too many times—and I no longer want my faulty choices to bring delay in gaining what God has for me.
PERSONAL REFLECTION: Are you wandering in your faith/faithlessness today?
TODAY’S PRAYER: “Father, I don’t want my choices to bring delay in Your blessings. Grant me faith to press on no matter what I face.”
TOMORROW’S READING: Deuteronomy 3:21-5:33
*Merrill, E. H. (1996). Deuteronomy. In P. W. Comfort (Ed.), Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (Vol. 2, p. 472). Tyndale House Publishers.
