What’s Your Promised Land?
What’s Your Promised Land?
The Israelites had been wandering in the desert for 40 years. God had promised them a land flowing with milk and honey but they let fear rule instead of trusting that God would do what He promised He would. As a result, all of the people who had left Egypt would die in the desert. It would be up to their children to obey God and take control of the land God had promised them.
Now this promised land was under Israelite control, but some of the tribes still hadn’t received their allotments of land. It was time for them to quit dragging their feet and do what needed to be done to take possession of their land.
Do you have a ‘promised land’ that you have yet to claim? Maybe it’s a ministry God has put on your heart. Or perhaps it’s becoming the person you believe you were created to be. Maybe it’s simply that healthy lifestyle you’ve envisioned for yourself but just can’t seem to reach….
What’s holding you back?
What do you need to lay claim to? Why haven’t you taken possession of it yet?
There are lots of things that can hold us back – lack of confidence in ourselves, not knowing where to start, unacknowledged resistance within ourselves, or maybe just failing to give our ‘promised land’ true priority. Sometimes it’s not being able to see the whole path forward.
When we take a look at what’s really holding us back, though, it’s almost always something that’s within us rather than our external circumstances. And many times, the root cause is fear — fear we’ll fail, fear change will be painful, fear of the unknown, fear we’ve misheard God’s direction to us….
Be brave!
It’s normal to feel fear; we’re only human, after all. But as believers, we know we don’t have to be afraid of moving forward into what God has promised us, because we have His assurance that He’ll be with us all the way.
What He told Joshua still applies to us today: “… Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9)
Whether or not we feel we have the ability to take possession of our ‘promised land,’ we can rest assured that God can make it happen. We don’t need to be afraid of our human failings. We just need to take responsibility for doing our part, start to ‘take possession’ and leave the rest of it up to God.
As you go forward into your ‘promised land,’ I pray that you will feel God’s purpose, presence, and power in your life.
Blessings,
~Terri
Today’s Prayer
Heavenly Father,
We come before you today with humble hearts, knowing that we don’t always step forward in faith toward what You have for us. We allow fear or other obstacles to stand in the way of claiming our ‘promised land.’
We know that if You have given it to us, You will empower us to make it happen. We simply have to be obedient in doing what You’ve given us to do and trust You with the rest.
Your word tells us that You will be with us wherever we go, that You will be our help in times of trouble, and that You will never leave us or forsake us. Help us to truly believe Your promises and act accordingly.
Help us step out in faith and start to lay claim to our promised land today.
In the precious name of Jesus we pray,
Amen.
Such a nice and relevant post Terri. For me I think my promised land is overall just trying to spread positivity in life since it is so inundated with a lot of terrible things lately and another is to try to do more volunteer work in my local Knights of Columbus chapter. With the hectic grind of work and taking care of my mother, often times I am just not able to have the time to volunteer. But I am working on that. And such a beautiful prayer to end your post with!
Thank you Mark! ‘Life’ sure can get in the way sometimes, can’t it? It seems these days we have so many things to do we can’t fit them all in. I love that you want to spread positivity – we could definitely use more of that in this world! I know you’re always an encouragement to me. I hope you and your family are doing well. Blessings to you my friend!
Why is your post showing up for subscribers only, I just saw that on another follower who doesn’t have a private site? Can you help me understand. Did you intentionally set the post for subrcibers only? Thanks.
Hi Mel, I’m not sure what you’re talking about with the ‘subscribers only’ thing. Is it in the WP Reader? I definitely didn’t do anything on purpose, and I haven’t changed anything on my blog lately. If it’s in the WP Reader, I wonder if it has something to do with my blog being self-hosted instead of WP.com. I’m able to link my WP.org site to the WP.com site, but lately if I reply to comments in WP.com I have to go into WP Admin to approve my own comment! I don’t have any idea what’s going on…. Hope you’re doing as well as possible sweet friend. Sending hugs.
No, I believe it’s a WP issue. There were at least 10 people I read today that had the same issue and they didn’t intend it to be that way. I think you should talk with a Hapiness Engineer about the comment issue, that sounds complex. They are great, they do a good job considering what they are working with. WP is one of the worse companies in allowing System Engineers to make changes live, by doing that it can affect another part of the system. It’s a horrible way to operate but their not going to change. I talked with them every day this past week, I’m not very happy right now. Hopefully things wlll work themselves out on the Suscriber only issue.
A great way to end my day. Reading your post. Thank you for the reminder and the beauty words in the prayer.
Thank you so much Sarah! You’re so sweet to read it after such a long day. Thank you for being such a blessing to me. Love ya!
Such a poignant & thought provoking post Terri! Thank you!
Blessings, Jennifer
Thank you so much Jennifer! I was just thinking about you yesterday. I realized I hadn’t ‘stopped by’ your blog for a while. It’s been one of those high-pain months and I’ve let my ‘visiting’ suffer. I hope you’re doing well sweet friend! Blessings to you!
Terri I totally understand. Sad to hear you’ve been in a flare, I hope better days are ahead for you my friend.
It’s our Winter months here in Australia so both hubby & I have noticed our pain levels have increased but we keep smiling 😉🙏
That’s all we can do sometimes, isn’t it? No matter our circumstances, we always have something to be grateful for. I’ll be praying for you and your hubby as you deal with the increased pain brought on by the cold weather.
Thank you Terri! Yes, at times that’s all we can do ☺️