Not turning back

Topic: Bitterness

Focus: Not turning back

Exodus 16:2-3 (NIV) In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

There will be days when you will be tempted to fall into old habits and patterns of behavior–times when you lose sight of the future and the blessing just ahead–because you made the decision to look behind you. It is so important that you keep facing forward.

Posture yourself for progress. If you are turned sideways, you will be tempted to remember some small moment that was pleasurable when you were in bondage and turn back. If you do that, you will have to start all over again—or you may never become free, at all.

Face forward. Where you are going is far better than where you have been. You can’t move ahead when you have one foot in the future and the other foot stuck in the past.

The Biblical story of the children of Israel is one you can benefit from right now.  For more than 400 years, God’s chosen people were held as slaves in Egypt. They had no freedom and were unable to break away until God sent them a deliverer.

NOW, YOU CAN LISTEN AND/OR READ!

When they were finally able to leave their life of captivity, they embarked on a journey to a rich land God had promised to them. The trip ended up taking a lot longer than it should have. They became lost in a wilderness and wandered for years, not making any progress because of their constant complaining and disobedience.

Instead of being filled with gratitude that God had brought them out of their hopeless circumstances and was leading them to a new life that would be filled with plenty, they could only think of what they had left behind. Those who didn’t have faith never got to experience life in that new place. They died in the desert.

When you have stepped out of the past and have made the decision to come out of depression and addiction, there will be a time of temptation–a period when you will wonder if there is such a thing as being really free. Even if you hear stories of others who have made it through—you will think, “Well, it might have worked for them—but it can’t work for me.” There will be times when the enemy of your soul will whisper in your ear, “You don’t have to keep suffering in this wilderness—just turn back. What you had before was better than this.”

Don’t listen to the lie that you will never be any different—that there is no hope for you. Don’t believe because there is a history of depression and addiction in your family, you are just going to have to live the same way because it is in your blood.

Keep making it through one day at a time knowing you have a Deliverer. The power you have working in you has brought you this far and you will make it this time.

Declaration: I will go forward and not backward. By the power of God, I will win this battle. I will not die in the desert. I will live and prosper–as my God has promised.