Deuteronomy 11:8-9(NLT)
“8 Therefore, be careful to obey every command I am giving you today, so you may have strength to go in and take over the land you are about to enter. 9 If you obey, you will enjoy a long life in the land the LORD swore to give to your ancestors and to you, their descendants—a land flowing with milk and honey!”
The promise that God made to His chosen people that were living during Old Testament times is magnified in this passage. But we must not forget that there was a condition to this promise. It was their obedience to His commands! Moses was the man that God chose to lead His people, the Israelites. God commanded him to drive home what they needed to do in order to inhabit the ‘land flowing with milk and honey’ that He promised to give them. Through Moses, God taught the children of Israel how to stay courageous and strong, so they could go into the territory and take possession of the land. Not only did they have to remember the goodness of God in the past, but they had to remain locked on Him in the present in order to claim the blessings that were in their futures. This is the key to success for all times.
Many believers are not allowing God to help them be courageous and strong, but instead, they are emotionally and mentally exhausted. Some of us remain in this state because we think we’ve done all we can to move ourselves to the next level. We began the spiritual practices we were taught; fasting, praying often, and reading God’s Word, but when things didn’t work out as we had hoped, we slacked off. We were disappointed by a person, relationship, or situation, and our motivation for the things of God diminished. Without realizing it, some of us put up walls and secretly, we have doubts that faith in God actually works. We tell ourselves that we can’t afford to get our hopes up, and that facing disappointment again is just too painful. Once this program starts running in our heads and hearts, we never get to the place of having faith because our fear of disappointment keeps us walled off from it. We won’t let ourselves be convinced that the life we want is the life we can actually have.
The children of Israel must have felt this way when they were enslaved by the Egyptians. Life beat them up pretty bad, because the Egyptians were very harsh taskmasters. They were cruel, and God’s people endured unspeakable terror under their rule. The Israelites prayed to God to save them from this terrible condition, but their slavery lasted 400 long years because they lost hope.
Although modern times are blessed with conveniences and technology that have made life easier in one respect, it has made finding the right destiny partner more complex. The social ills of our generation are unprecedented, and they continue to mount. This is the backdrop that makes navigating through single life very rocky and often disappointing. If you’re trying to maneuver this without God’s divine leadership, there is no telling what you’ll end up with. Many of us have gone down that route. We tried to handle things without growing in the Lord and increasing our faith in Him. This, more than anything else, is the cause of many of the disappointments we face in life.
God promised to give His people a land that was abundant and overflowing with beauty, but after receiving the promise of the Father, many of them continued to wander in the dessert and never entered the Promised Land. For 40 years they wandered because they didn’t believe God and would not trust the instruction He provided to Moses. They refused to rally themselves in hope, and that is what many of us are doing today.
Hebrews 11:1 tells us that faith is the assurance of things that are hoped for. Faith is the evidence or title deed to the thing we’ve prayed to receive even though it hasn’t shown up in the natural. Our faith in God assures us that the manifestation process has begun and will continue as long as our faith remains. Faith means that we believe what God says about the blessing we are hoping to receive. When it comes to our faith in God, past disappointments are not a factor because it is impossible for God to disappoint. He tells us in Romans 5:5(NIV), “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
We make a huge mistake when we look back and see failure and not the goodness of God. We cancel our faith when our view of the past is one of focusing on the negative instead of feeling gratitude to God for life and for bringing us through tough times. The purpose of the past is to teach us hope, not to program us for fear. Humans don’t have the capacity to have faith and doubt at the same time. We can’t believe that God blesses us with all spiritual blessings, and simultaneously believe He disappoints us too. God created us in such a way that we can only focus on one or the other. This is why our faith is so extremely important to Him, because without a fully persuaded faith, we limit what He can do for us. Without a fully persuaded faith, we are not believing and trusting that God is who He says He is in His Word. He can’t reward that kind of thinking.
The blessing of marriage doesn’t have to continually go unclaimed year after year. When we cling to God, pray much, study more, and obey His Word, the manifestation of our blessings will come to past. Many of us think, “But I’m doing all those things. How much more will I have to do?” Even if we prayed and studied the Word 24/7, we still would not have given God one tenth of a percent of what He deserves. Our whole lives must be presented to Him, because they belong to Him. You must be committed to spiritual discipline because God deserves your all.
Of course, He wants us to enjoy our lives but following the example of Christ can’t be something we do just to see a blessing manifest. Faith must be our lifestyle. It must be a life commitment, and when it is, God promises to reward us. So, don’t let disappointments in life keep you from firmly anchoring your hope in Christ. Give God a total commitment that isn’t attached to what you want from Him but is based on your desire to please Him. He is a God who fulfills His promises. That is who He is, and you must trust this with all your heart. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Unclaimed Is Just Temporary”, written by Kim Times, edited by Reverend Fran Mack, for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2021. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! SMS is dedicated to inspiring and encouraging Christian Women through the Word of God.