The Exodus Life--When Freedom Is A Journey

In the aftermath of forsaken 'Eygpt" (and bondage to large mortgage payments), we landed in humble-ville. The place of a Grandmother's upheaveled home where we began this leg of our journey. My feet quickly found their soles on the bottom, valley floor.

In our efforts to live as debt-free as possible, there has been change. Our former dream home was gladly forsaken in the beginning of God's call back to big country as some would call Texas. Competing for our contentment was also the dream of land and a farm. Both dreams would've married had they merged in union.  But alas, this was not the case. So we left on the mountain top of God's move in Spirit and flesh.

In all our prayer and scripture seeking, it was clear. Take care of family. This gave us the courage and peace we'd done the right thing.  Breathing becomes harder in the thin air of mountain tops, so valleys become necessary.

After a sea of states parted our U-haul crossing, we landed in the wilderness and desert of sacrifice.  Our family no longer lived comfortably for ourselves.  In the end, an answered prayer but also the start of a long, hard journey.  The valley of the shadow of death came and we have been walking out of it ever since.

Silhouetted against sun, the mountain peaks cast their shadows in the valley. And if we stand and block the sun, we too cast our own shadows.  Perhaps the shadow of doubt lingers like the Israelites who remembered slavery in Egypt and thought it better than this. It wasn't; but in the valley shadows come.  Stiff-necked ways tend to be revealed in the dog days of desert.  And in the provision of job, stability, and friends, I've found the shadow of complaining. Close to home, like the Israelites who quickly forgot all of God's miracles from their own mountaintop experiences, did I not do the same in my circling of grit and wilderness? 

Flesh strives with spirit to build with our hands the golden calf.  Instead, I continue to give my hands to His Hands.  But it doesn't mean a salty trail won't blaze a path toward shaky chin out here past the Jordan shores. We stepped over the threshold to milk and honey and that means facing battles. Yet the drowning waters of discouragement are cutoff by the new covenant in the ark of Christ. His consuming fire before us leads us out. Through the battle-weary days of possession, we know the abundance of promise awaits those who love and do the will of the Promised Son.  Out of humble desert places, our hearts have been tested in the journey to promise. Each step a lesson in walking in His way and an appetite trained to hunger for His Word.

"So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know....that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord." Deuteronomy 8:3

"..Those who bore the ark came to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests who bore the ark dipped in the edge of the water (for the Jordan overflows all its banks during the whole time of harvest), that the waters which came down from upstream stood still, and rose in a heap...and all Israel crossed over on dry ground, until all the people had crossed completely over the Jordan." Joshua 3:15,16, 17

Today I'm unwrapping baby steps. Each tiny one brings us further in our journey and hones our skills in dependance on Him. For more unwrappings, visit Emily's place at "Chatting At The Sky".