Our wilderness lessons

Many people have been asking me how I like my new house.  I love my new house.  We went through quite a lot to get where we are. 

If you’ve been following me on my blog, you know that we lived with my parents for 9.5 months while we were selling our properties in Georgia and getting our new house built in Pennsylvania. There were a lot of stressful times with permits and contactors and things. 

There were times we got very frustrated with the process but we knew we were where God wanted us to be. We felt led by God throughout our journey of relocating.

Looking back, I can see how God used that time in our lives to draw us to Him,

I was thinking about the story in the Bible about how the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness for forty years.  God impressed on my heart that He had us on this journey to teach us some things..

God had us in our “wilderness”  to humble us.  To teach us that all good things come from Him.  To teach us to appreciate all the things He provides for us.  God wanted us to completely trust Him for everything.  There were times when we didn’t know what else to do besides pray. 

God breaks us so that He can then work through our brokenness. We need to serve Him with a humble and broken spirit.  This is so we are dependent on Him and not dependent on our own talents to get us through.

God had us in our “wilderness” to show us what was in our hearts.  It is easy for us to give Him our head but not so easy to give Him our hearts.  God wants our hearts.

God had us in our “wilderness” to teach us that man doesn’t live by bread alone.  We need to be in His Word daily.  God made me hungry for His Word.  He made me see that I needed to spend more time thinking and meditating on His Word.  I was “putting in my time” with the Lord out of a sense of obligation but I wasn’t diving into the Word with a hunger for truth and growth. 

God gave me perspective as I thought about the facts that the Israelites never needed anything that God didn’t provide. Sure they had wants but they did not have needs.  In our wilderness, God provided everything we could possibly need. 

As God takes His people into the promised land, He reminds them that He provided everything they had.  It was God that provided their herds and their houses.  They were not to think that they had accomplished all of those things for themselves.  It is God who blesses and lead us.  God deserves the praise and the glory for everything that I have and everything that I am.

 

.