When the Lord has brought us out of some place of slavery and into a wide, spacious place, we look at the vast expanse and sometimes tremble in fear rather than dance in freedom.
If we fully trust the Lord, we throw our heads back, laugh, and run around, saying, "I knew You would pull me through, Lord!" We feel comfortable in our new home.
However, if we're not sure we can truly trust the One who has brought us here, if we are not sure we truly know Him or can trust His Word, we often yearn for our old place of slavery. At least that was familiar, we knew how to behave, the daily patterns were well-worn. Here, we hardly know what to do or who we are.
When Yahweh brought Israel into the Promised Land, they still had a mindset of slavery. They were "destroyed for lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4:6). I've been learning in a Bible study by Jennifer Rothschild how the "knowledge" they lacked was the Hebrew word "yada," a word for intimate knowledge - not just knowing who God is, but truly knowing Him - His ins and outs, His character, the kind of God He is.
Israel did not realize all she had in the One True God, did not realize He was the One who had delivered her, her Provider, who "gave her the grain, the new wine and the oil, and lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal" (Hosea 2:8). They took what the Lord had lavished upon them and offered it back to idols because of their lack of knowledge of Who had truly delivered them. They didn't believe He was as good as He said He was.
So Israel left the Lord and formed alliances with the very people who had been her oppressors - Egypt, which had enslaved them, and Assyria, which had brutally attacked them.
So often, when the Lord delivers us from some form of slavery - destructive thought patterns, an unhealthy relationship, a stronghold in our lives - we don't know what to do with the newfound freedom, so we run as quick as we can back to the thing that enslaved us. We trust that dark place, that false master, more than we trust the Good Shepherd who delivered us.
Why?
Because living in the light is unfamiliar.
Living in peace, in hope, in trust, in faith that believes what we cannot see, is uncharted territory. And so, like Israel, as she is described in both Hosea and also throughout many other Old Testament books such as Numbers, we long to return to our oppressor, to our attacker. We run after other lovers, who will betray and beat us in a heartbeat.
The Lord has already delivered you, and He has brought you into a wide and spacious place if you trust in Him; truly the boundary lines have fallen for you in pleasant places (Psalm 16:6). You have been made complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10). You lack nothing and have been given the power to trample over all the power of the enemy (Luke 10:19). These promises are true for all disciples of Christ!
We have no power to break the New Covenant, to negate God's promises of deliverance toward us, to nullify His goodness or faithfulness. The promises are all His to keep and ours to gratefully and joyfully receive.
We can, however, put ourselves back under old masters. We can choose any given day to believe what Satan says about us over what God says about us. As Pastor Bill Johnson loves to say, "There are always two trees in the garden."
Today, we have the power to choose Life over unbelief.
You don't have to plead for power over the enemy; you already have it.
You don't have to plead for deliverance from those who would seek to harm you; you already have victory in Christ.
We have everything we need for life and godliness (1 Peter 1:3). Don't return to Egypt, to your place of slavery. It's never too late to return to the God who already "yada" knows you - intimately, inside out, every need, wish, and desire.
Though you may have turned around yesterday and started walking back toward Egypt, though you may have started forming alliances even in your Promised Land with those who would seek to destroy you, today you can turn around and press on to know the Lord (Hosea 6:3), to yada the Lover of your soul.
"His going forth is as the dawn; And He will come to us like the rain, Like the spring rain watering the earth."
