When God shows you the door, walk through it…

I don’t often share what happens in my personal prayer time with everyone. If there is a word
for my house then, of course, I share it with my wife but not the masses, generally. But today, The
Lord has shown me something in a very familiar passage of scripture that I haven’t looked at
this way before. Our reference scriptures for today will be Exodus 16:17 and Numbers 13 26-34.

In Exodus, the people have been freed from the hand of the Egyptians, they are past the Red
Sea and they are headed toward the promised land. Rightfully so, they begin to wonder about
food. The issue is that they do so in a very complaintive manner. They immediately begin
talking about how they should have stayed in Egypt where they had their fill of food and the
luxuries of Egypt. Remember, they were enslaved so their memories were a bit skewed from
reality. Sometimes our current situation may not be exactly what we expected, and we want to
revert to what is comfortable rather than pressing forward for what God has next. Don’t let the
fear of change keep you in bondage when the promise of what’s next is so much greater. The
issue I had was that they saw God open a whole sea and then drown their enemy and they
don’t think this same God can feed them? So, in this passage, God has provided food for them,
and he gives very strict measurements of how much they can have each day and to not get
more than they need except on the sixth day because that was the preparation for The
Sabbath. God will never leave us without. You may not be exactly where you want to be in life
yet, you may not have the home you want or the car or even be in a position financially to
move towards those things but remember to be grateful for the things you have and steward
them well, so that God can give you the increase and enlarge your territory. This brings us to
the passage in Numbers.

At this time the Israelites are so close to taking the land of Canaan and the Lord tells Moses to
pick one man from each tribe and send them to see the land. He instructs them (Num. 13:17-
20) to see what kind of land they are going to be living in and check the soil and see the walls
and even try the fruits of the land. What he did not instruct them to do is come back and vote
on whether this was right for them or not, which is what they did. The 12 spies came back and
in an overwhelming 10-2 vote they decided that they couldn’t take the land. They were afraid
because the men of the land looked like giants. How often do we miss out on the promises of
God because we are afraid to take a certain step that He has placed on our hearts? He told you
to go back to school or sow a certain seed at the church (or elsewhere), or start that business,
or even leave a certain job, and because we are looking through the lens of the present and our
own limitations, we say things like “when the time is right” or “at some point I will…” The
Israelites cost themselves 40 years of wandering. The Oxford dictionary’s definition of
wandering is traveling aimlessly from place to place and while that is the truth, it is only half of
the story, the Israelites were constantly at war. Countries would attack and try to overtake
them, and they constantly had to watch themselves. So, because they are wandering without a
place to call their own, they also don’t have a place of shelter and are susceptible to attack.
What I am saying is this, when you are out of God’s will, it will feel like hell on earth. What the
Israelites lost was time in the land God promised them (some never saw the land) and they lost
their peace because they were vulnerable and didn’t have a place of safety.

My takeaways for today are:

• God will provide
  o He will never leave us lacking. Just like the manna in the wilderness, he will give
  us enough.
• Be thankful for what he gives even if it isn’t the end goal
  o Manna wasn’t necessarily what they wanted but it was sustenance for the time
  they were in
• Steward well what you are given
  o The instruction was to take exactly what they needed and nothing more. Don’t
  try to live fat in lean times. Take what you have and make the best use of it and
  God will give you more when it is time.
• And when God shows you the door, walk through it
  o We do not work in our own time. God has an appointed time for everything and
  that is not up to us to decide. When he opens a door, even if you are afraid, walk
  through knowing that the same God who brought you to the door, will take you
  through the door.

I truly hope that this was able to bless someone and that we can learn from the mistakes of the
Israelites. I pray that today, and in the future, you will work what you have as God is preparing
to take you to the next level and when you get to that level, trust Him and His timing and walk
into what He has in store for you.