Unlimited

Recently overload was taken to a new level. The work with which I’m familiar was enough to keep me busy, and on top of that I had a newer client whose procedures weren’t organized yet, and I was due to begin a new monthly bookkeeping client that week. It was not an exaggeration to say that I felt panic.

I sat down to read, and opened to Exodus. ‘I am sending my angel before you … to bring you to the land I have prepared … I will wipe out your enemies … but I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate … little by little … until you have increased to enough to take possession.’ And then, later, in Joshua, ‘be strong and courageous … be strong and very courageous … be strong and courageous.’

As I read, I became aware that in this area of my life, I have crossed my Jordan and entered my promised land. As I increase, the Lord will wipe out the current inhabitants of the land; my primary job is to worship the Lord and be strong and courageous in heart.

This changed my perspective—and, remarkably, my ability to deal with the situation. Last night another thought went through my head: as far as I know, the Lord hasn’t placed any limits on my area of habitation. And that struck me as very interesting indeed.

You see, when the Lord gave Abraham’s children a land, He gave them all the area between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, and between the desert and the Euphrates. I haven’t studied the details, but I’m confident that if they ever inhabited that entire country, it was only for a very small period of time, during David’s and Solomon’s reigns. I rather doubt, however, that they ever fully took possession of their promised land.

My point is that we tend to have a twisted concept of God’s promises, and the opportunities available to us. When we look at an amazing possibility, we tend to think that we’re being overly ambitious, or that such a thing would be beyond us, or that God wouldn’t give us something like that. This was precisely the attitude that kept Israel from their land for forty years, but even that is not entirely the point. The point is that God gave a certain land to a certain people, and promised that He would drive their enemies out before them … and they never entirely possessed that land.

So I say that it isn’t as we tend to think. It is not God who is telling you to shrink your vision; it is God who is telling you to enlarge your vision. As you increase in every way, He is willing to drive out all your enemies. After all, the only reason your enemies inhabit your land is because the Lord created the earth to be inhabited.

Why don’t you do the inhabiting?

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