Living in the desert.

I'm discovering that I am so much like the Israelites of the Old Testament. For a bit of time they would walk with The Lord and follow his commands, but would then turn from him and begin to worship other gods and forget all that he had done for them. 

Read Psalm 106. It's powerful. It's quickly covers the tale of the Israelites after their time in Egypt while they were in the desert. Many times, especially in my life at the moment, we can be like the Israelites in the desert. Times are hard, so we call out to God and he answers us. And for a while things are good. And then other things start to pull at us and turn our attention away from God and our lives may start to fall apart to some extent. That's when we call out to God again. 

This is what I'm calling "living in the desert". If we want to start living the life that God wants and demands us to live we have to make the trek out of the desert. It's not easy. The Israelites didn't figure it out once they made it to the promised land either, but we still need to go. God's promises to us are far greater than we could ever imagine. We just have to embrace his son in our lives and stop living in the desert. He has already done much more than we could realize even at our furthest point. And we can't enjoy a deeper relationship with Jesus until we realize this and make the journey into the promised land.