There has been some silence at Living Power since I have been away for the past three weeks in Vienna, Austria where I was conducting an evangelistic crusade, thank you for your prayers, the Lord truly blessed and I am a witness to His mighty deeds.
It should have been a great day when Pharaoh finally decided to allow God’s people to leave Egypt. I could imagine that as the children were packing their backpacks and the adults were collecting their belongings there was great excitement throughout the camp of the Israelites. There was jubilation in the air: “Free at last! Free at last, Thank God Almighty we are free at last!”
To some extent this has been our experience when Jesus saved us from the bondage of sin, many will agree with the chorus: “It was a great day when I was born again …” On that say we also sang another chorus “I am so glad that Jesus washed my sins away…” Indeed, we all start the Christian journey will a lot of excitement looking forward and hoping that indeed “every day with Jesus will be sweeter than the day before”
However, in spite of the liberation euphoria there was still a journey to be undertaken. Between the land of bondage and the Promised Land there is a journey to be undertaken, in fact, freedom important as it is, it is just the beginning, the journey has only begun. It would have been nice if there was no journey, it would have been nice if after one is free from the land of bondage the next day they wake up in the Promised Land. It would have been nice if after the day I accepted Jesus as my saviour I would wake up in heaven.
The greatest challenge is in the journey. It is in the journey where many people become discouraged, it is in the journey where people (even Christian and fellow church members) starts to gossip about you and say all kinds of nasty things about you. It is in the journey where you pray, fast and pray some more and yet there seems to be no answer. It is in the journey where your faith is test and your patience stretched to the limit. It is in the journey where many decides to look back and are turned into pillars of salt.
Why the journey? I would like to suggest that the journey prepares us for the destination, the journey is there for character development, and the journey is there to prepare us so that we can qualify to reach the destination. The journey which was by foot was not so much for physical fitness as it was for spiritual fitness. We need the journey, hard and painful as it might be sometime, for us to get ready for the destination.
Unfortunately only two men from the six hundred thousand that left Egypt made it to the Promised Land, and these are frightening statistics. Don’t give in and don’t give up in the journey, the destination will be worth it all, when we finally get there we will say “Heaven is cheap…”
