Numbers 14: 1, 4: “If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness! So they said to one another, “Let’s appoint a leader and go back to Egypt.”
The Israelites were at The Jordan River ready to cross over into Canaan, their destiny and the land God promised them. They were on the brink of walking into their glorious promise God had for them. However, they saw that there were going to be some challenges to grabbing hold of their promise (eg there were some inhabitants in the land they needed to defeat-vv. 28,29). God delivered the Israelites from Egypt, but they still had Egypt- their slavery, bondage, captivity- on their minds.
Too many of us are holding onto and rehearsing the pain, mindsets, and situations of yesterday that we can’t embrace the hope and promises God wants to bring us in our tomorrows.
Like them, there are things that we are going to encounter and parts of our character that need to be developed by God’s grace and enablement to grab hold of our promises. However, the more we rehearse our yesterdays, the less we are able to obey God in our present to experience what He has for us.
God has been dealing with me specifically in this way lately as He brings me closer to crossing over into Canaan. God has been showing me how to let go of the past- disappointments, regrets, pain, and even the good- to fully embrace what He has in my present and future. God specifically told me recently, “Let it go”.
We can stand firm on what Paul- a former murderer of the early Christians who became one of the greatest Apostles in The Church, authoring almost 1/2 of The New Testament:
“but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead” Philippians 3:13