Not Another Day.

Countless journals entries filled with tears, calling out for rescue from my faceless enemy.  The one who haunts my sleeping hours, the one who steals my joy during the day.  The worry bringing into focus only my fears and failure.  When will you finally come and help me?  But, if I'm honest I would have to say, again?  You have rescued me from this prison before, for me to only run back once again.  

They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.  Maybe, I'm insane.  

I see myself in the Children of Israel as the spies return from the Promised Land, bringing back their bounty and sharing tales of beautiful landscapes truly filled with plenty.  The initial excitement of seeing two men carry a pole between them laden with a single huge cluster of grapes, juicy red pomegranates and delicious figs, food they had never seen in Egypt, is contagious.  Hearing the men report back to Moses, "Indeed the land is flowing with milk and honey," must have caused waves of frenzied excitement to flow through the crowds.  But just as swiftly as they had rejoiced, the rest of the report causes fear to radiate and pulse from person to person and from one family to the next.  Giants, fortified cities and enemies too fierce and numerous for a bunch of newly released slaves to face.  

All of Israel begins to cry out and complain against Moses and Aaron, accusing them of bringing the whole assembly out into the wilderness to die.  Accusing God of allowing their wives and children to become plunder and finally crying out to go back to the very land of oppression they had just been miraculously delivered from.  

The Israelites feared the people of the land more than they feared the God, who had parted the Red Sea for them to walk through and then drowned their enemies in the turbulent waters.  They forgot to remember in their panic that the One True God was fighting for them.  And a sad thing happened that day...  God gave them over to their fears.  That generation spent the next 40 years walking around the same mountain and dying in the same desert.  Choosing to live by sight and not walk in faith cost them the abundance that God had for them.

Oh, they were able to live to a good old age and God fed them with manna from heaven.  He supernaturally kept their shoes and clothes from wearing out and they lived a comfortable, faithless life in the wilderness.  They never really had to face any hardship or fight any battles.  They were safe and protected by the presence of God every day.  They walked out of their tents every morning and picked manna from the ground and drank water from the springs and moved when God moved and stayed when He was still, but they never saw all the good that God had for them.  They never again tasted grapes, pomegranates and figs.  They never tasted the honey from the new land, they never saw those walled fortresses collapse, they never saw enormous armies put to flight, they never lived in houses they didn't build and harvest crops they didn't plant.  

14,600 days they walked around the same mountain until they died.  

I don't want to walk around this mountain ONE. MORE. DAY.  

Not another day.  There may be giants, but who can be against me IF God be for me?  There may be walled cities, but God can knock those walls down.  There may be warriors, and I may be only a newly freed slave, BUT God is fighting for me.  There may be weapons I've never seen and chariots and horses, BUT I will trust in the NAME OF MY GOD.  

One thing I do NOT want to do is die in this wilderness because I was too afraid to take what was rightfully mine.   The Giants in my mind may scorn, they may laugh, but if I can help it, the fear that bullies me now will come face to face with my God.  

I want to spend the next 14,600 days watching God do things that I never thought possible.  I want the abundant faith-filled life that Jesus promised to those who believed in Him.  I don't want to just see the land from a distance, I want to walk in the length, the width of it.  I want to trade my comfort for your best.  

Fear and Faith can't cohabitate, so Lord help me walk in Faith for the rest of my days.  

"Now without faith it is impossible to please God, since the one who draws near to Him MUST BELIEVE that He exists and is the rewarder of those who seek Him."  Hebrews 11:6

"By FAITH our ancestors won God's approval." Hebrews 11:2

Faith is the evidence, of what you believe.  Faith is the action you take in accordance to what you say you believe about God.  Let's not let fear hold us hostage one more day!  Take that step of faith.