Forty years is a long time to circle a thing that is “so near” to what you want in life and yet “so far” because you just can’t get away from it. Yet you need to break free of it to get what you want. That was the case with God’s people. He had delivered them from bondage in Egypt but after they voiced unbelief in their ability to move forward into the Promised Land, God turned them aside into the wilderness. They remained there until the unbelieving generation had died.
What should have been an eleven-day journey took them forty years! During those wasted years they circled Mt Seir, a long mountain range south-east of the Dead Sea that was home to the hostile Edomites, the descendants of Jacob’s brother Esau. Knowing they would die in those forty years because of their unbelief would have been bad, but that they would die while being looked down on by spiteful relatives on Mt. Seir would have made it worse. They circled the mountain for forty years but were not permitted to go beyond it into the Promised Land.
I’ve met quite a few people over the years whose lives could have been described as “same old same old”. Like those who walk in circles after getting lost in the bush, they know where they’re going because it’s where they’ve been already. Year after year they find themselves doing the same things but with less energy. Their secret hope is that their children will not make the same mistake.
There comes a day, however, when God says enough. For God’s people that day came when He told Moses: “You have circled this mountain long enough…” Moses turned them northward and led them through the lands of Edom, Moab and Ammon to the border of the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 2:3).
The generation that died in the wilderness because of their unbelief is ancient history. Christians live under Grace, not under Law, so our past is no longer a lasting testimony of shortcomings; there’s hope that we can get back on track.
If you can relate to this, the challenge is to stop living as a Christian nomad and to get back the long lost sense of direction that will make you a pilgrim again. A mountain is a point of reference. Wherever you wander, as long as you can see the mountain you relate to, you have a good idea of where you are, even if it’s not where you once wanted. You learn to live with less while knowing that it’s not God’s best.
You can live life by the calendar of historic churches that informs you of annual religious events; or you can be led by the Spirit of God into unknown experiences. The first is cyclical and predictable; the second, though scriptural, is less predictable and so more challenging. You can go around again and again or you can stop going around and start going ahead wherever you may be led.
One group knows pretty much all there is to know about salvation, since its members hear it preached Sunday after Sunday. Members of another group know the power of the Holy Spirit by experience and by examining the Gift from every possible angle. Members of yet another group have crossed and recrossed the charismatic landscape so many times they know the gifts of the Holy Spirit like the back of their hands. But why limit yourself to one truth when the Bible promises you all of them and more?
We get enough spin from political operators, and more than enough bias from the media 24-hour News Cycle. We need to stop going around and to start going forward. Have you viewed your favourite TV program for so long that all of those who acted in it are now dead? If you can’t start your day without reading the newspaper or watching breakfast TV, try cancelling your subscription or pulling the plug! Break the connection and kick the habit.
What ‘mountain’ have you been circling for so long—for too long? It’s time to stop moving in the same old circle and to start heading in a different, more definite direction; and for Christians only one direction is definite, and that’s onwards into the promises and upwards into the glory! It’s time to stop circling and to get with those who know where they’re going.
It’s time to move on!