I’m not even sure where to begin. God dropped this thought in my mind as He was working in me and changing something in me. Something I’ve wanted to happen for a long, long time. Something I’ve fought and fought and fought to happen, only to end up more frustrated and angrier because it wasn’t happening. Have you ever been there? It wasn’t even something worldly or something out of God’s will. It was just out of His timing.
In the Old Testament of the Bible, God’s chosen people went through 430 years of bondage in Egypt. It started with God’s will and ended with God’s will. If you don’t know the story of Joseph and how he ended up being 2nd in command in Egypt, then you need to read it. Because of a famine in the land of Israel, God brought Jacob and a total of 66 family members to Egypt to get out of the famine. But they stayed there. And it says in Exodus 1:8 “Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.” And that is how they came into slavery.
After 430 years, God rose up Moses to lead the people out of bondage and brought them into the wilderness. He had a promise for them, but He needed to know if they’d be faithful, so He tested them. Deuteronomy 8:16 “Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end;” Strong’s Concordance defines “prove” as; to test, try, tempt, assay, put to the proof or test.
Stay with me. I’m showing by Biblical example that God has a will for us, but also a timing for all that He does. The Bible tells us that they failed God’s test because of their grumbling and complaining. They were weak minded and declared they were going to get a new leader that would take them back to bondage and slavery. Really? Why would they do that. Unfortunately, many of us find it “too hard” to do what God wants us to do and we find it easier to go back to what we were comfortable with, even if it is in bondage! Guilty! I hate to say this but moving into the unknown for many of us is frightening and it makes us do things that our flesh doesn’t want to do. That is why many of us stay in abuse or bad situations for years!
Moving on. As we fast forward through 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, Moses dies and a new leader arises. Joshua. Exodus 33:11 “And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.” Because Joshua sought the Lord, the Lord raised him up to be the new leader.
But more than once God had to tell Joshua to be strong and courageous. Joshua 1:6-7, “6 Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them. 7 Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.” Joshua was afraid of the unknown!
In Joshua 1:9 God told him again to be strong and courageous. “9 Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” In this Scripture God told Joshua that He would be with him wherever he went. A promise that God also gives to all of His people. If we have been grafted into the family of God, this promise is for us too.
In Joshua, chapter 3, God gave Joshua specific instruction on how to proceed and how to lead His people into the Promised Land. The book of Joshua is a physical battle, it is a pattern for the book of Ephesians which is a spiritual battle. In verse 4 it says “Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure: come not near unto it, that ye may know the way by which ye must go: for ye have not passed this way heretofore.” In other words, they had never gone down this path before and they did not know what to expect. They didn’t know what was going to happen and God was giving them specific instructions.
The whole Bible is our instructions when we don’t know which way to go. God told them they were going into the Promise Land, the land He had promised Abraham! The Promise Land was described as a land of milk and honey. Yet the first thing that happened when they crossed over Jordan is found in chapter 5:7 And their children, whom he raised up in their stead, them Joshua circumcised: for they were uncircumcised, because they had not circumcised them by the way. 8 And it came to pass, when they had done circumcising all the people, that they abode in their places in the camp, till they were whole.
Hold on a minute. They were going to inherit a promise given to their father Abraham to inherit a land of milk and honey. First thing they encounter is pain! And then they go into battle, for many years! What happened to the promise? Same thing that happens to us when we give ourselves to Jesus. People have been led to believe that walking with Jesus is a walk in the “garden”. It gives us a “God at the wheel complex” where we expect Him to do everything for us. He did. He died on the Cross and gave us everything we need to live this life.
We just didn’t expect the abuse, the hate, the pain and hurt and the battle. After healing from the circumcision, the covenant God made with His people, (Genesis 17:10.-14), Joshua and the people of God faced the battle of Jericho. We all know the story found in Joshua 6. God again gave specific instructions of what they were to do.
God had instructed Joshua what they were to do in order to win the battle. Joshua 6:16 “And it came to pass at the seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people, Shout; for the LORD hath given you the city.” It says the Lord gave them the city. But then they had a part to do.
Joshua 6:20 “So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.”
The people had to obey the voice of the Lord and follow His instructions to see the promise of God come to pass. They had to walk around the city as God had commanded. And in God’s timing, the walls fell down flat. Then it says the people went up into the city…and they took the city.
We expect God to do everything for us and to make everything happen that is to happen in our lives, especially when He has given us promises. But because He gave man free will, there are also things we have to do, like choosing to have a relationship with Jesus and choosing to live for Him and to allow Him to use us for His glory. We have to give up our will, just like Jesus did in the garden of Gethsemane. He gave up His will in order to do the will of the Father. But it isn’t just a matter of “saying,” it is a matter of “doing”.
James 1:22 “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” And then there is God’s timeline, when He wants to move and wants to make things happen. Habakkuk 2:3 “For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.”
Also 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” When God gives us a promise, it is hardly ever what we think. He doesn’t do things our way or in our timeframe. But He is always God just the same. Don’t allow the devil to whisper in your ear and pull you away from God. The devil is a liar and his ways will send you straight to hell.
Isaiah 55:8-12, “8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. 10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: 11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. 12 For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.”
God has spoken many promises into my life, and I have fought so hard trying to make them come to pass. But for years, they didn’t because it wasn’t His time. And sad to say, I didn’t stay on the straight and narrow path, but I allowed the devil to whisper in my ear, that because I wasn’t seeing what God promised, I started believing that God could not deliver. But God has been faithful to who He is, and to His Word. He has brought me back to the straight and narrow path, and I have been able to see the lies of the devil and through repentance I am now seeing God’s promises to me come to pass.
When the Lord Moves
