Don’t Look Back from the Land Flowing with Milk and Honey

Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, that you must also make yourself a prince over us? (Numbers 16:13 ESV)

God miraculously delivered the Israelites from Egypt. He promised a land flowing with milk and honey.

They had been slaves to the Egyptians and had been abused—even having their children murdered.

So what did they do? They cry out to God (Exodus 2:23-25). He heard their cries and rescued them from oppression. God didn’t promise an easy journey through the wilderness and into the Promised Land.

A Land Flowing With Milk and Honey Lies Ahead

On their way through the wilderness, God continually provides for them as only He can. We read though that some leaders were sick and tired of wandering through the desert.

So the Israelites looked back at their Egyptian slavery through rose-colored glasses. They actually started seeing it as a place of milk and honey, which was what the Promised Land was to be!

How crazy is that?! Their slavery started to look good to them.

It’s easy for us to point fingers at them and think, how silly! But so often, we do the same thing!

Our deliverance might be less dramatic than leaving Egyptian slavery. Our life change could be conquering a sinful pattern, ending a harmful relationship, or even God bringing us to a new place to serve our community.

These changes God has called us to are often hard journeys. And these fresh paths can feel like wandering the wilderness. We might catch ourselves impatiently wondering, “Where is my land flowing with milk and honey?!”

Often, this experience is the hardest. Waiting in the tough seasons.

Like the Israelites, we can look back in the past through those same rose-colored glasses. Or, we can choose to look beyond the difficulties, toward the land flowing with milk and honey God has for us. In Hebrews 12:2, we learn that Jesus did this very thing!

“…looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

As you come to similar crossroads, you can look back — or keep trekking forward!

Are you looking back or following the words of Paul in Philippians 3:14: “press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Today’s devotion by Jordan Loftis, author of two bestselling books, Today We Win and The Men With Bare Feet, host of The Bible Better Podcast, and editor of Short Daily Devotions.