March 14th | Numbers 32
Settling for Second Best
In Numbers 32 the final group of wilderness wanderers are dying out, and the next generation is preparing to enter the promised land. As they stand at the Jordan River, ready to cross and take on the inhabitants and drive them out with the power of God, the tribes of Rueben and Gad falter. Instead of desiring the promised land that God desires to give them, they want to settle in the land on the wrong side of the Jordan River!
Numbers 32:5, “And they said, “If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants for a possession. Do not take us across the Jordan.”
How could they possibly ask for this land? God had promised to be with them and give them a land flowing with milk and honey. Yet, as they looked where they were at they essentially said, “This is good enough.” They settled for second best.
I think about our Christian faith and how often we settle for second best. We are content with a little prayer here or there. A little community on Sunday mornings. A little help from God every once and a while. We are content to settle where we are at in our walk with Christ. However, Christ has called us to abundant life! We can know Him and experience Him in new and fresh ways every day, but we settle for the pleasures of this world instead of Christ.
Moses gives these people a warning. He tells them that their fathers didn’t follow the Lord and it led to them wandering in the wilderness, and the same could be waiting for their generation as well.
Numbers 32:10-12, “And the Lord’s anger was kindled on that day, and he swore, saying, 11 ‘Surely none of the men who came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, because they have not wholly followed me, 12 none except Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua the son of Nun, for they have wholly followed the Lord.’
What was the reason an entire generation was left in the wilderness while Caleb and Joshua were able to enter the promised land?
“They wholly followed the Lord.”
God is offering you the promised land. In Christ, there are riches untold. There is peace beyond measure. There is a joy that is indescribable. Don’t settle for the pleasures that money, hobbies, or a day at the lake can bring. Instead of devoting yourself wholly to those things, devote yourself wholly to the Lord. Only then will you realize how great the promised land can be!
