Does God ever tell you to read a specific book, or a specific part of a book, at a very specific time or place?

He does me.

I recently spent two nights on a wee retreat in beautiful Pitlochry and took with me a book that I have been slowly journeying through since God encouraged me to begin reading it three months ago.

I went into the retreat pretty shattered and my mind a whirlwind so I wasn’t terribly surprised when God told me to read the last chapter of Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership on the second day of the retreat. But I was expectant as to what He would speak through it that second day.

As I sat by the woodstove on that second day, warming myself after a long, wet, cold but beautiful and invigorating trek, this was the sentence that reached out and grabbed hold of my heart, reducing me to tears:

“for Moses the presence of God was the Promised Land.”

Oh, God may this be true of me!

Ruth Haley Barton describes her struggle over the years with what I have often struggled with – how God deals with Moses’ act of disobedience, his weak moment of anger. That one decision cost him the Promised Land. That one moment of weakness meant that He could only look on the Promised Land from afar but would never be able to complete, to taste the fruit of, what he had poured himself out, body and soul, for. It seems so harsh. But my struggle lies deeper than that – it lies in the possibilty that that could be me, that could be my story. And that isn’t a nice thought.

But Ruth Haley Barton points out something here – something that even in the sadness and seemingly harshness of the consequences of Moses’ disobedience, is beautiful and profound and makes my heart cry out “Let this be true of me!”

Moses never hesitated to argue with God, to plead for Him to change His decisions. But here he doesn’t argue, he doesn’t plead, he peacefully accepts the situation.

Ruth Haley Barton says this:                                                                        “…Moses went through a fundamental shift in his life as a leader, a transformation of the deepest kind. This was the place where visions of grandeur and the allure of greatness ceased to hold the attraction that they used to. This was the place where the presence of God became the ultimate and everything else paled in signifcance. 

Then she goes on to describe one of the most beautiful pictures of intimacy with God that I have ever read:                                                                            “By this time Moses and God were like an old married couple who had loved and fought for so long that they had reached a deep level of understanding. They had been through so much together that now it was enough to sit and rock on the front porch of life, each one content just to know that the othr is there. That was all it took to make life good.”

I wrote a blog post for 24-7 Prayer Scotland recently, talking about how my rhythms with God have been disrupted of late and I felt guilty that my time with Him looked different from normal. And I felt His amused smile over me as He whispered,”I just want to be with you, whatever that looks like right now.”

I was sitting with these recent revelations this Easter morning and pondering what it looks like for the presence of God to be my Promised Land, more precious and dear to me than all the dreams and visions of my heart and all that He has entrusted me with in the work of His Kingdom.

And it came to me that we, I, am His Promised Land. Our presence with Him is what He holds most precious.

Hebrews 12:2 says about Jesus, “For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

We were that “joy set before Him” – uninterrrupted relationship with us was what made it all worth it to Jesus.

So much has come and is still to come from that choice Jesus made to surrender His life – the restoration of ALL things! But in the midst of it all, His Promised Land, incredibly, is unhindered, initimate, lasting, joyful relationship with us!

So if being with me is Jesus’ Promised Land, then how could I desire anything less than His presence as my Promised Land?

It is the longing to be a certain kind of person.
A person who knows God.
A person who is faithful against all odds & does not shrink back.
A person through whom God can perform whatever deeds need to be done – mighty or otherwise – but also a person who can be just as content settling down beside a well or sitting on the side of a mountain in God’s presence.
Someone whose face shines because she has been talking to God.
Someone whose every move is a result of an attempt to listen to God…
Someone who, when God says “It’s time to let go; it’s time to come home,” easily lets go and rests in in the arms of this One whom she has grown to love and trust with her very being.
Ruth Haley Barton, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership