Three “takes” on this:

1. The Old Testament (past). Well, of course! May I assume that you, dear blog reader, have heard the Exodus story in the Bible?

God led the Israelites out of Pharaoh’s brickyard of oppression on a daring adventure of faith. They believed in God’s promise of deliverance. The ensuing forty years of wilderness wandering tested that faith severely, but God did not renege. That epoch became such a powerful testimony and metaphor for our lives in the kingdom of God. Most of life is a wilderness journey of unknowns. But the destination is guaranteed.

2 GPS (present). My mother-in-law thought this was one of the greatest inventions ever. Why? It may have saved their marriage!! Think about it. How many nasty car-ride arguments have happened between the driving husband who “knows” how to get there and the riding wife who doubts that with every fiber of her being? You can even choose the voice or accent of the voice that guides you on the way! GPS is truly a marvel. When you take a detour for a “pit stop”,  it redirects you back to the main path. You reach your destination.

3. The church, the world, and all of God’s creation (future). What does the Promised Land look like for those three? Full sanctuaries on Sunday mornings again? One world government? No more climate change or global warming? The bigger the setting, the bigger the obstacles to overcome. We are weary of (almost literally) forty years of church decline, of wandering lost in the wilderness. We have moved from modernity into the incubation of post-modernity. The life of the so-called religious institution is nearing flat-line status. What is the new thing that will emerge, i.e. what God is up to? This planet, and the entire universe, are in God’s keeping. We are heading toward the Promised Land. Don’t do the math of conspiracy theories, rapture theology – which is not biblical – or timeline calculations based on the signs of the times. Only trust that we will reach the Promised Land, sojourning with Jehovah through the wilderness. Everything we see and encounter here and now is only preparation for what’s to come in the kingdom of heaven. Even so, we pray that it will come among us. There was (is) worship and rejoicing in the wilderness because they (we) know that God loved (loves) us unconditionally.

Pastor Art