Apparently, Seeing is Not Believing

As Moses begins his farewell address to a new generation of Israelites as they stand ready to take possession of the promised land (Deuteronomy 1), he reminds them of God's promises, his faithfulness, and also the reason their fathers (the previous generation) didn't get to go in. Israel had wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, basically waiting for the former generation to die off. They refused to believe God even after seeing him come through for them over and over and over again.

"The Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went..." (vs 30-31)

They were there! The sea parted, food appeared every morning, water gushed from a rock. They saw it with their own eyes! These incidents were not stories passed down from father to son. These people were witnesses of the actual events, it was their own experience, yet still, they refused to believe that God was going to come through for them again. What they did believe was that God hated them and wanted to destroy them.

"Because the Lord hated us he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us." (vs 27)

Incredible.

So God gave them up to what they believed. They wandered with no sense of purpose or direction, the dry, lonely, wasting wilderness was where they merely existed, and then they died, having never taken hold of the promise of abundance, joy, freedom and fruitfulness.

This is not so far removed from what happens today. I have heard Christians say in their despair, "Why does God hate me?" Maybe this is something you have thought, too. May I challenge you?

Have your lousy circumstances come about because God hates you, or are they the result of your refusing to believe otherwise?

Sisters, this may sound harsh, but you really do have a choice about what you believe. You have seen his faithfulness, his good work in your lives, or you wouldn't be a Christian. May your seeing transfer into believing. Don't be like the Israelites who saw, yet refused to believe.

Our God is love. He loves YOU. He is FOR you. He is not out to get you. That's absurd. He is ever present waiting to give you faith to know in your heart what you believe in your head. It will come together, but it starts in your head, and you must choose truth.

Let's take God at his word, that we may enter into the "land" he has set before us! (see vs 8)