"But Hobab said, "I'm not coming; I'm going back home to my own country, to my own family." (10:30)
How often do I hear, read, know God's promises - and say "I'm not coming, I'm going back home to my own country"? How often does "back home" look better to me than what He has in store for me? How often do I become too attached to "back home"?
Sitting beside Nichalas this past Sunday, listening to their minister, Luke, I heard him ask, "What has been the most important decade in your life". Instantly, so many memories rushed through my mind. Marrying my Curt, the birth of our sons, our different places in setting up a home, the additions of our daughter-in-loves, our grandchildren. And through all of those life changing events, it was the past 10 plus years which struck my heart. These have been the years in which I have chosen to be in His Word each and every day. These have been the years I have sat and gleaned from Him, listened to His voice. These have been the years I have grown to know what intimacy "in" Him really is.
These have been the years in which He has taken and grown my heart to be more like Him. Changing the all of me. I can see myself focused on Him with more and more of my steps. How He is no longer "out there", but here within me. I love how His Word is continually growing me and drawing me closer to Him.
A few years ago we completed the Downline Disciple course. His Word is over and over again telling me - "Watch - Do". I pray each day for closed doors - they are easier to see - in the areas where He doesn't want me to go. I pray each day to be at the ready for His Divine Appointments. (Every encounter I am wondering, "Is this the one".) I eagerly look forward in my day for the adventures He is sending me on. It has been by refocusing on Him, I have the true freedom to enjoy life in the fullest, no matter the circumstances.
Moses countered, "Don't leave us..... If you come with us, we'll make sure that you share in all the good things God will do for us." (10:32)
In Numbers 10:1-10, bugles were blown to notify the people if they were to march, stay, fight. Whatever His call they were to do as He instructed. Just as He never instructed them to go back to Egypt, their earthly home, it is the same for us. It isn't about going "back home". It is about where He is taking me.
I have recognized I have been too wrapped up in the past. I have been clinging to the "good" memories, trying to fill the void from the hurts which my past has left. Only He can fill that void. Good memories are just that - memories. And even though I have felt they fill me, actually they are robbing me of my present.
Particularly with our sons. It is hard, no impossible, to treat them as adults if I am constantly remembering/focusing on them as babies and being young. God has blessed me with two awesome adult sons and their families. I need to march on with them. Creating new memories, which are okay to take out with the old ones and look at - occasionally. Not to live through them.
"Blow the bugles.....they will keep your attention on God. I am God, your God." (Numbers 10:10)
How His Word has become, as His bugles, in keeping my attention on Him.
Telling me.
I am God, your God.
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