The Promised Land in Eleven Days (Deuteronomy 1:2)

3/13/10 “Normally it takes only eleven days to travel from Mount Sinai to Kadesh-barnea, going by way of Mount Seir” (Deuteronomy 1:2)
This verse reminds me of me. The Israelites could have gone into the promised land in eleven days, but because they didn’t trust God they wondered in the desert for forty years. The Lord spoke to the Israelites and told them to take the land that was promised to them. They sent spies to the land of promise and “This was their report to Moses: “We entered the land you sent us to explore, and it is indeed a bountiful country—a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is the kind of fruit it produces. But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak!” (Numbers 13: 27-28) They saw the land that God said He was giving them and they said it was good. The problem was that they saw the giants of the land and became scared. They did not trust God and take Him at his word. They thought that the GIANTS were to big for them and even to big for God. They had forgotten that God had delivered them by parting the Red Sea and letting them walk through on dry land. Moses told them “The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still."(Exodus 14:14) then after they were safe on the other side God defeated the Egyptian army without any help from the Israelites. In the same way the Lord gave me a promise when I accepted Him as my Lord and savior. Then He gave me a promised land verse. Proverbs 3:5-8 “ Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the LORD and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh, And strength to your bones.” If I would have taken God at his word, I would have saved a lot of time and pain. The problem was that I rewrote the verse to accommodate me. It would read this way “trust is the Lord with SOME of my heart, And LEAN on MY OWN understanding; In SOME OF MY WAYS acknowledge Him, and He MIGHT direct your paths. I WAS WISE IN my own eyes; I FEARED the Lord and DEPARTED FORM MOST evil.” I changed God and made Him into my own image instead of being changed into HIS. I saw the giants of my past and became scared and didn’t take God at His word. The result was that I wandered in a desert of spiritual inconsistency. I toiled for so long and didn’t seem to get anywhere. I went to bible college , helped start a church, and did many other things I thought were Godly. What I should have done was “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you”(Matthew 6: 33). I come to realize that all of my self-seeking toiling left me wandering in the desert and kept me from entering into HIS promised land. Instead of eleven days respectively it took forty years for God to correct my willful disobedience. Hebrews 4:10 -11 “For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall.” Lord God I thank you that I finally have entered into your rest. Matthew 11: 28-30 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."