Move Into Your Promise Land: Don't Settle for Manna - Ep 124

Are You Settling for Manna? Leaving the Wilderness for Your Promised Land

I want to share a challenge with you. Are “settling for manna” by staying in the comfort of the wilderness instead of moving into the Promised Land?
The Promise Land includes battles, giants, and the work of taking territory.
I have personal seasons of deliverance followed by temptation to camp in comfort rather than fight the remaining battles with the Lord’s strength. I want to keep a Joshua-and-Caleb mindset of faith and forward movement.
A key thing for moving into the Promise land is a supportive community to help establish God’s rule in your mind and soul, resist doubt and confusion, and take ground for future generations.

00:00 Are You Settling
01:17 Promised Land Reality
03:00 From Slavery to Manna
05:27 Spies and Giants
09:55 Wilderness Comfort Trap
11:32 Offense and Authority
12:37 Caleb Mindset Shift
15:27 Community and Inner Territory
18:04 Generational Freedom
19:01 Invitation and Next Steps

I'd love to connect with you!

• Find community in Healing Generations
•  Learn how God communicates with you in Transformational Quiet Times

Transcript

Rethinking What Promised Land Means

Manna Comfort And A Slave Mindset

Choosing Offense Over Waiting

Taking Territory Inside Your Mind

Community Generational Freedom And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 0:15

You know there is a promised land, a land of peace and authority and wholeness. And yet sometimes you still struggle with doubt and worry and confusion. In this episode, I want to challenge you with a question that the Lord has been challenging me with recently. And that question is: are you settling for manna? Are you staying in the wilderness because the giants and the battles of the promised land just seem a little too big and a little too scary? So the Lord was giving me this new perspective on the Promised Land. And I realized that while I know the Bible stories and know they had to go in and fight battles, and there was giants in the land and all of that, I somehow still had in my mind that promised land was like peace and prosperity and somewhat a life of ease, I guess. And I think ultimately that's where we're getting. Obviously, that's what it will be like when there's a new heaven and a new earth and we're with Jesus forever. We're getting there. But when the Israelites first came to the edge of the Promised Land, it was still full of giants. It was still full of enemies. It was still full of people who worshipped pagan gods and did horrible things. And they, it was their responsibility to get those people out before they could have the promised land of abundance and prosperity and peace. And so the Lord just had me thinking about that of so you had Israel that was in captivity, in slavery for 400 years, generations upon generations. And not all the generations had been slaves. I don't know the timeline on that exactly. Like it had been enough time for the rulers of Egypt to forget who Joseph was and how he had saved their entire existence and how grateful they were to him and his family. I'm not exactly sure how long they had been slaves, but probably generations. And in the midst of that, they still knew they were God's chosen people. They still knew that wasn't where they belonged. They knew that their father Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and yeah, Isaac and Jacob had been promised a promised land. And they were crying out to God to be delivered from their slavery. Their situation wasn't good. They were doing hard labor, they were making bricks, they were working in the fields. I don't know if they had to grow their own food on top of that. Life wasn't good. That's why they were crying out to the Lord. And he delivered them. He did ten miracles in a row that impacted the Egyptians and didn't impact them. And he had shown off his power over all of the Egyptian gods, coming down to the final one where it took out the firstborn of Egypt. And he gets them to the Red Sea. And they have to he gets them to the Red Sea. He's been leading them with a pillar of fire by night and a cloud of smoke during the day. They can see his presence, they can see he's there. They see impart the sea, like he's done all these incredible things. And they're in the desert for a little over two years before they get to the edge of the Promised Land. And after they'd been like they'd been traveling for a while, I presume they ran out of the food that they brought with them. And the Lord starts providing manna every day. All they have to do is go out and pick it up. And sometimes there was quail. So they had to harvest the quail and cook the quail. And in this time in the desert, they're given the law, they're given the blueprint for the tabernacle. They build the tabernacle and all of the different pieces, all the curtains and the ark and the lampstands and all the different things that he gave them to build the temple. They did all that in the wilderness. And they've been living as slaves, they've been living under Egyptian control. And so he had this time of like, okay, come out and renew your mind. Like I'm telling you, this is how you settle your disputes. This is how you stay healthy. This is how you manage your property. This is how you manage your money, like all of this stuff. He's teaching them, like, this is how you're gonna manage the promised land when you get there. And it wasn't enough. They got to the edge of the promised land and they sent in the 12 spies to go spy out the land, to go scope it out and see like what does this look like? How are we gonna do this? And Joseph and not Joseph, Joshua and Caleb came back and they're like, This land is amazing. God is so good. Let's go. And the other ten were like, Well, yeah, the land is amazing. I mean, like, look, we brought back a clump of grapes that was so big it took two men to carry one clump of grapes. So the land is amazing. It's abundant and fertile and it's great. However, there are enemies and giants in the land, and we just look like grasshoppers to them. Which wasn't true. We read that the people in the land of Canaan were terrified of the Israelites because they had heard about what happened in Egypt. So they weren't seeing the Israelites as grasshoppers. The Israelites were seeing themselves as grasshoppers. But so they came to this place of like the Lord's like, yes, here's the promised land. I'm ready for you to go in, I'm ready for you to take it. However, that slavery mentality, I think that's what I've kind of always been told of like, you know, you can get the people out of Egypt, but you can't get Egypt out of the people. And that might be the case. But part of it was also they'd gone from hard labor and, you know, doing the bricks and working in the fields in this hard toiling life, to all they needed to do was collect the manna and take care of their sheep and spend time, at least what they should have been doing, is spending time with the Lord, getting to know him, getting to understand how he wanted them to live. And even if they weren't doing that, like they had the contrast of like this hard toiling life and manna, like kind of a welfare state. Like the Lord was taking care of everything. It's their clothes didn't wear out, nothing. They were just completely taken care of. And now the Lord is saying it's time to go from this season of rest and start fighting your battles, start claiming your territory. And especially for that first generation going in, they weren't like they were gonna reap the benefits of the promised land, but they also weren't in a lot of ways, because the way the Lord instructed is each tribe had a section of the promised land that was laid out for them. And so the ones who were closest to the Jordan were obviously gonna get their land first. But once they got their land, they weren't off the hook. They were supposed to continue helping the other tribes get their land until the whole promised land was under the control of Israel and all the tribes. So this was like a generations project. I mean, I don't know how long it would have taken if they had followed the Lord, if they had continued asking, like, okay, we conquered this city, where do we go next? We conquered this city, where do we go next? You know, what's the plan for this? I don't know how long it would have taken, but assume it still would have taken years. It probably wouldn't have taken generations. I don't know. I don't know how you would figure something like that out. But the idea of going from my food is provided and I'm living at peace, like there weren't, they had one battle in those two plus years in the desert. So there's no enemies out here. We're provided for. Life's pretty good in the wilderness. And yeah, the promised land sounds good until I see the giants and I see the battles. And I just don't know that I'm cut out for that. I mean, I've been a slave and I've lived in the desert. How do I know to be a warrior? How do I know how to defeat giants? And so the Lord is just challenging me with that. Of I've had seasons in my life where because of different relationship things, because of different health issues, I've gotten to that point where it feels like I'm in Egypt. It feels like I'm just completely stuck in bondage and I need a deliverer, and I cry out for deliverance. And he shows up and he in some of like the worst seasons, like he shows me who to reach out to to help to get out of Egypt. But what he was showing me is I get to the wilderness where I have his presence. I have that connection with him. And I'm no longer building bricks and toiling in the field. I'm no longer feeling so utterly stuck. And I'm with him, and things are more comfortable. And from that place of comfort, it's easy to like, okay, I'm gonna camp here instead of continuing. Like, there's more battles to fight to get to the promised land. I'm out of Egypt, but I'm not in the promised land. And obviously in Christ, I am. I'm in the promised land, but I'm not necessarily living like it. If there's some battles that still need to be fought, there's still fear and doubt and confusion, which are all from the enemy. And if it's an enemy, then there's a battle to fight. And so looking at like, what do I need to push myself to go from the wilderness into the promised land, to go choose to fight those battles, not stay in the wilderness and wait for the battles to come to me, and I'll fight them and deal with them when I have to, and I end up feeling like I'm in Egypt again. But to actually go forward and say, this is my ground, this freedom, this authority, this, you know, having heaven's perspective in this particular situation, in this particular arena. And it's my job to bring it there. To go on the offense, what do I need to be able to go out and do that and go on the offense with the Lord? Because it's obviously all in his strength. If I go out to do it on my own, I'm gonna be beat, just like the Israelites were when they didn't consult the Lord before they went to AI. Um, but sitting with the Lord in that of like, okay, what does it look like for me to say, like, I I like the manna in my humanness, in my weakness, I like you just providing my daily needs and kind of put the blinders on and be like, I'm I'm good. And yet, there's my spirit that's like, there is so much more, and I so want to be out conquering Jericho and conquering AI and taking out the giants, and want to be like Caleb, who at 80 years old was like, give me my mountain. This is my land for me and my generations, and I'm not afraid of those giants. Like, I know that the Lord has given me victory. Like, that's the promised land I want to be living in. That's that, and for us, obviously, it's not land. So, kind of those state of minds of am I in a wilderness manna and quail mindset, or am I in a promised land? The Lord put me here to expand the kingdom. And so I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna move forward. And yes, that means I don't get manna anymore. It means that I now live off the fruit of the land. And some of that fruit the Lord was providing because the people of the land had already planted the vineyards and things. But then there's other things like grains that need to be grown every season, and you know, animals that need to be harvested every season for meat. And so there's a whole different level of work and lifestyle in taking the promised land and living in the promised land than there was in living in the wilderness. And one of the things that he's showing me is like that intention to focus on that mindset, that Caleb and Joshua mindset of like, this is ours, the Lord gave it to us, and so we're gonna go take it. The enemy doesn't have a chance. I need to remind myself of that frequently, because life keeps happening. And with all of the distractions there are, and all of the ways that the enemy still knows how to pick at me. If I'm not reminding myself of that, then it's easy to be like the Israelites and be like, oh, let's go back to what was before. That wasn't really so bad. We trick ourselves or allow ourselves to be deceived way too easily. But one of the things that he's been showing me with that, along, along with reminding myself of that mindset of like, right, this is who I am, this is where I'm going, is I'm not going into the promised land alone. Joshua and Caleb couldn't go in by themselves when the other ten and the whole nation didn't want to go. The Lord isn't sending you into your promised land alone either. We're meant to be part of a body. And so having a community, even if it's just two or three of other people that understand that you're a Caleb, that understand whatever that is, whatever you're calling of like this is a territory you're meant to go in and take possession of. And when I talk about territories, that might be an area of thinking. It might be a relationship because we have to start with us that we have to establish the Lord's rule and reign and sovereignty in ourselves before we're going to go out and take ground anywhere else. And so it's those battles with confusion or anxiety or the doubt that you're actually good enough and that God really called you and could use you. And I think at some level that battle will always be there. But there's also a level of settling that with the Lord and being able to come back to it when the temptation to doubt comes in, to be able to come back to what the Lord said and who he says you are and who he is, and all of those things. That needs to be established. And so that is the territory we're taking to begin with, is the territory within us, within our own mind and our own soul, those places that don't trust the Lord and don't trust his goodness. And having people around us that see us the way he does, and that we can reach out to to say, hey, I'm struggling again today. The discouragement is hitting me, the confusion is hitting me. And instead of condemning us and telling us how we should do better, they're like, okay, I'm on it. I'm praying. Remember, this is who God said you are, this is what God said you're doing, this is what you're doing for generations. Just like the Israelites were to go in and take the promised land for generations, not for themselves. We're taking this ground for generations because whatever the enemy does not have in us doesn't get passed down to the generations. And whether your kids are still in your home or they're adults, like still doing that work to clean that stuff out of the generations, so future generations can live in the promised land. There's more of the promised land that's already taken, that's already established under the rule and reign of the Lord. And yes, they're gonna have their own battles, but they're gonna be more equipped, they're gonna be more prepared, and they're gonna be continuing to expand the kingdom because Jesus' government continually expands. That's how it works. I would love to hear what resonated most. And if you feel like you could use someone to walk you through from Egypt to the Promised Land, or maybe just from the wilderness to the Promised Land in any of these areas where you need to establish that foundation in yourself, you resonate with that Caleb and Joshua spirit. And you can get pretty discouraged because you see you're not walking it out the way you want to. Reach out and schedule a call with me. And I will see you next time.