One in a Million: Journey to Your Promised Land

by Priscilla Shirer

Something similar has happened in the “generational” neighborhood we call our own. With a church on every corner and a Christian radio station at nearly every point of the dial, with Christian bookstores in many shopping districts and more Bible resources available than ever, we’ve gotten so accustomed to the blessings of God, we’ve grown virtually deaf to His voice and blind to His presence. He’s met us so frequently with what we need—everything from putting food on our table to keeping us from catching the flu—that we typically don’t stop long enough to chalk up these daily benefits to His active care and provision. But not only that, if He were to do something uniquely interesting in our lives, if He chose to display Himself outside His usual pattern, if the train of His glory were to come through in some remarkable way, is there a good chance we wouldn’t even recognize it because we’ve lived in the neighborhood of His favor for so long? May we not become desensitized to God’s activity. May we stay keenly aware of the presence of God, even at night when the shadows are dim, even when listening for Him requires being able to pick out His gentle whisper in the silence, and even when we are walking through the in-between times. One-in-a-millions know that God has put them here—in this particular place, at this particular time—with certain things for them to experience. They’re not afraid to live through the in-between, development times because the muscles they’re growing ...

the call toward discontentment leads you to places you never want to go, and it keeps you from seeing God’s current blessings in your life.

The spirit of complaint is born out of an unwillingness to trust God with today.

the wilderness is not a barrier between us and abundant living. It may often feel like it, but it’s not. The thing that barricades our entrance into Promised Land living is when we wander in the wilderness, when we delay our development process by refusing to stay near to God, even when He feels far away.

Will we, you and especially me, ever get it through our heads that the wilderness is a blessing He gives to us in order that we might see Him more fully and completely, that we might love Him more intentionally and wholeheartedly? The wilderness is where we learn most clearly “that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord” (Deut. 8:3).

Will you trust God enough to believe that anywhere you can grow nearer to Him is the right place for you to be?

He wants your life to give daily evidence of

His presence as seen in the way you handle

everything from prosperity to heartbreaking loss, everything from buzzed-up excite...

He wants His influence to...

heavily over your actions and decisions than all those me-first and people-pleasing attitudes that often come quickest to mind. He may even want you to be squeezed into a situation where no other explanation can suffice for your deliverance ...

But here’s how we test whether or not we’re learning what God is teaching in His wilderness lectures. Here’s how we know if we’ve been paying attention when He’s made the circuit through our lives. If we have spiritual vision and anticipation to expect God to wring glory out of this in-between situation—a tight, uncomfortable spot that’s a whole lot easier to gripe about than to pray over. (Now this—this—is what I’ve got to work on.) If we’ve grasped the fact that nearness to God and a developing readiness for Canaan are more valuable than anything else. If we can keep ourselves fixated on reflecting His glory rather than repeating our self-consumed complaints.

God can and does move on behalf of His people. These thirsty in-between times when you are trudging through a particularly rough or stagnant patch have not fallen on you by mistake. He is making a way for His greatness to be seen, for His glory to be put on full display—a way for you to experience in real time what He promises to be when you’re sitting on the pew, hoping it’s true.

While so much of what Canaan represented to Israel and to its neighbors was a life of external blessing and abundance, Sinai represented a place of internal blessing and abundance. And the two were nowhere near each other. Maybe Yahweh knew that the blessings of Canaan might blind His people to the priority of relationship with Him. So He led them in the opposite direction first to secure their loyalty.

Are you at Sinai today? Are you at a station in life that seems to you (or to others, as they peer inside) as though it is the total opposite of blessing and fulfillment? Then let Sinai remind you not to be discouraged. God has brought you to this place, for in it stands a mountain in which God’s presence will appear. Often when external blessing seems to elude us, internal spiritual gifts come tumbling our direction. Sometimes—not always but sometimes—it takes being in the worst shape of your life to see and hear the Lord.

Wading through a time of difficulty under His protective guidance often prepares our hearts to accept His invitation and become ready to walk with Him in a covenantal relationship. Sometimes it’s only after undergoing the fight of our lives that our desire to meet Him on the mountain comes into full bloom.

being in this place—“on this very day”—is not accidental. It is His perfect timing that has brought you to this point in your journey and to His mountain with a tender heart, ready to receive His invitation to

nearness.

This experience was required so I could lay down my independence on myself and depend on God. I have indeed learned to trust God for everything in my life. I fooled myself into thinking that before all this I had given my whole life to God and looked to Him for every answer. What I learned through this season of life was, that simply wasn’t true. I may have desired to give it all to Him, but in the back of my mind, I held on to the things I thought I could take care of. Once Jordan’s tumor began to grow and it was determined that he would need to undergo the surgery, I had no choice but to let go and let God have His way. I certainly couldn’t go to college and get a degree in neurosurgery in six months, so I had to trust God to take care of Jordan. And I knew He would—no matter the outcome. God knows what will happen in my life, and He has a plan for me that’s better than anything I could map out for myself. That’s a woman who’s quit seeking God’s treats. He had taken her as far away from her hoped-for destination as she’d ever dreamed possible. He had positioned her in Sinai, miles and miles from everything she thought abundant life was supposed to taste and feel like. But in this place she’d met Him in a new way. She had seen His face. She had heard His voice. In fact, Promised Land living had already begun for her because now only one thing mattered anymore: she just wanted God, not just His gifts.

“He doesn’t want you, Priscilla, and you still want a relationship with him. I do want you. Why don’t you just have a relationship with Me?”

You want to get out of the wilderness and away from the Sinai Peninsula as quickly as you can, right? You’re praying that the season of life you’re journeying through right now will come to a close before this book does. But what if you hurry through it only to realize later that you missed it—that you missed Him? What if there were things God wanted to show you, experiences with Himself that He wanted to give you, but you rushed right past in your haste to get out of town?

You are better protected in the wilderness at Sinai with God than someplace else without Him.

They watched and listened. And they were not disappointed. “The Lord came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain” (Exod. 19:20). Aah. God came down. And Israel

camp here at the mountain.

Don’t rush the wilderness, and don’t rush the Sinai experience. Wait. Sit tight. Give it time. Chill. Unpack your bags. Because camping out is part of this journey. Patience is part of what’s required for our hearts to get in tune with God’s desires.

And so He called Israel to holiness at Sinai, just as He calls us to holiness today—not

Before we can begin to contemplate this clear call to obedient living, we must remember this appeal for the people to “obey” His voice came three months into their journey—only after their deliverance from Egypt—just as His appeal to us comes after we have received His forgiveness for our sins by placing faith in Christ and being delivered from our own slavery. Holiness was not a requirement for their deliverance. That had already been given. The call to live holy came after they’d been made free by the One who loved them most. No one is expected to be good enough to earn salvation. No one. No amount of holy living can earn you a spot in eternity. But after we have received the grace of God, we are given the Holy Spirit to indwell us. Then, and only then, are we empowered to become people who actually have the capability of doing and thinking righteous things. As a result we have the opportunity to share in the same benefit package He was extending for the first time to His people, Israel, including the privilege of living with the following identities: • Being His “own possession”—every person highly valued by and related to Him (Exod. 19:5). • “A kingdom of priests”—each individual having full access to Him, with the nation as a whole acting as priests to promote the knowledge of God and to mediate His blessings to the nations of the world (Exod. 19:6). • “A holy nation”—set apart for His service and purposes (Exod. 19:6). In this Sinai experience God was in the process ...

The journey through and out of the wilderness—the journey of life with Christ—is all about breaking barriers. It’s about choosing to be someone who goes all-in with God, unlike the countless others who sit at home and watch their destiny go by. While millions live somewhere between pessimism and plain ordinary, expecting little of themselves and even less of God, the “one-in-a-millions” refuse to let their lives be defined by normal limitations and mundane routines. Most people let the barriers win. A few—those willing to do things differently—crash through and enter in. Why shouldn’t that someone be you?

But Promised Land living is reserved for those with a “different spirit” (Num. 14:24, 30). The “one-in-a-millions” are the only ones who can expect to see different results, the kind that make others sit up and notice.

We’ve spent the better part of our time together talking about what it takes to grow personally intimate with God, to lose ourselves in His larger will for our lives, trusting Him through shadow and storm to give us everything we need in order to live in faith and abundance, no matter our circumstances. We’ve watched God deliver His people from Egypt, marveling again at how He’s also delivered us from our sin and rebellion, drawing us into relationship with Himself through Christ Jesus and astounding us with grace too beautiful to resist. We’ve watched Him develop the children of Israel through their time spent in the wilderness, proving to us that His promises remain true even when everything seems to be going in the opposite direction. Yes, deliverance is what makes this journey possible. And the development phase is what makes it profitable. But the bigger question now before us, as people who’ve been promised not just “life” but life “abundantly”—both the milk and the honey—is whether or not we’ll be the one with a “different spirit.” The uncommon, unique, and unusual ones who will go all the way with God. All the way to our appointed, abundant destiny.

He has revealed Himself to us not only as our sole rock and resource but also as a God who is passionate about drawing us near, wanting us close.

Will we follow Him now to the exclusion of all others, including the tyrant whose face is reflected in our bathroom mirror? Will we break the barriers that keep us from tasting and seeing, from knowing and experiencing Him? Will we be wholly dissatisfied with simply being part of a crowd—people who merely have a religious side to our lives, smiling and shaking hands and thinking the pew is probably enough for us? Will we let deliverance and development lead us to the place where we are willing to get into the cockpit, alone if necessary, and burst into our destiny?

After many years of playing these issues somewhere in the middle, I can tell you now with total confidence in God’s grace and power exactly where I stand on these questions. I am determined to be a woman who walks in the fruit of the Spirit He is growing within me. I want to be one who listens for His voice and expects to hear it, who believes what most others are only willing to wonder about. I want to be the one who is willing to anticipate His possibility in my impossibility. I want to be a magnet, not to draw people toward noticing Priscilla, but to draw down the presence of the Holy Spirit in such tangible ways that He cannot help but be seen in me. I want to be open to His gifts operating in my life and be willing to use them for the edification of His body. I want to be the one-in-a-million of whom others say, “There’s somet...

Getting to Canaan, however, would require a willingness to accept a new normal, to break camp, turn from their usual activities, set a new plan, and go toward their destination. Reaching Canaan was reserved for those willing to make changes. God was calling them to another unknown and was preparing them to approach it by telling them to be thoughtful about their next steps. Moving toward Canaan would demand that they engage themselves mind, body, and spirit in a new undertaking. They must begin now to calculate their transition from development to destiny.

Are you coming? Are you prepared to do things different? To turn away from your comfortable places, or perhaps from a certain sin or spiritual distraction, moving toward the place where God wants to take you? Are you willing to calculate how you intend to set yourself in a new direction, mapping out a plan of action that will help you make the transition? Are you not only willing to go where He is leading but also to be held accountable for following through?

As long as I rebelled against what this new season of life required, I was agitated and unable to relax in God’s journey for me. But after finally making the decision to turn, the “setting” and “going” part of the equation—charting out a plan of action and following it—was at least doable.

God’s gifts require lifestyle modifications

Turn—“Let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us . . .” • Set—“Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith . . .” • Go—“Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” God was moving Israel from one place to the next, preparing to put them into position where their hoped-for destiny would be clearly within reach. But in order to go where God was leading them, they were being told to take dynamic action, to do things differently than they had before. They were being expected to believe that what He had called them to conquer next was worth every challenge.

going forward with God is often an exercise in being led toward uncharted, uncomfortable territory. But when we follow the winds of His Spirit with a willingness to do whatever He says in this new season of servanthood, He takes us to places we’ve never been before and accomplishes tasks in and through us we could’ve never anticipated. To fail at following because of fear and resistance is to miss out on the glories of abundant life.

staying close to God—the way we were when He met us at our lowest point, at our Sinai—must remain a priority if we expect to keep experiencing Him. Abundant life is not borrowed from yesterday’s surplus; it’s rekindled by today’s consistent supply.

they proved in living color the spiritual truth we’ve noticed before: the barrier to Promised Land living is not the wilderness; the barrier is wandering in the wilderness.

And it took them nearly forty years to figure that out. Why would anyone settle for circles when milk and honey were within arms’ reach?

Too many believers continue to model the actions exhibited by the Hebrews. God has granted them a bit of victorious living and oasis refreshment, and they get settled and content on the outer fringes of abundant life, feeling as though they’ve got all of God they really want or need. They’re pretty much OK with the way things are, not really believing or even desiring more than what just comes from showing up dressed every morning. In fact, if they were being perfectly honest, they think that people who do venture out boldly with God are taking this faith thing a little too far, to the point of being foolish. They’d be a bit embarrassed, frankly, to carry on

So give them Kadesh-barnea—a good conference, a Christian book, spiritual music, an up year at church, an up year of victorious Christian living, or just a good day—and that seems to do the trick. Before you know it, they’re settled in for the long haul. The desire for more is gone in a flash. Oasis accommodations suit them just fine. May as well look into the long-term rates—by the month, by the year. There are all sorts of packages like these to choose from at the oasis of complacency. Be honest. Is that where you are right now on your journey with God?

You might be in the oasis of complacency if the Promised Land is starting to look way too risky, if you’ve decided it’s really not worth what it costs to go to the next level with God.

They had become satisfied with safety. Comfortable with the common. They chose not to go into the Promised Land, charmed by the satisfying allure of this area.

Have you settled for less than the fullness of what God is offering? Have you become complacent with good while best is just around the next bend? Are you unwilling to walk away from some things you’ve grown accustomed to, things that are apparently more valuable to you than the experience of being intimately related with God on a daily, hourly basis? If so, you’ve wandered into Kadesh-barnea. And you’re not likely to want to leave.

You might be in the oasis of complacency if you’ve started thinking you’ve arrived and that nothing more is really requ...

So in the biblical record there was always more ground to cover, always more territory to traverse. They never “arrived.” They had to keep pressing on.

Our journey toward completely conquering the abundant life will never be a done deal on this side of heaven. As believers who want to claim what is rightfully ours, we must make a decision to take steps of faith by the Spirit’s power every day for the rest of our lives. There is always new territory in God to cover. This journey is a lifelong commitment.