Following, Not Wandering

I remember, ever since I was a young girl sitting in church, hearing the preacher and others talk about how the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. I never really gave much thought to the way in which their time in the wilderness was described, until now. Wandering implies moving about with not purpose, fixed destination, or goal. When someone is wandering they have no direction and are not being led by anything or anyone. But that is a far cry from what the Israelites were doing. The Bible says in Exodus 13:21 that the Lord went before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead the way and a pillar of fire by night to give them light. So, they were not “wandering”, they were being led by and following Jehovah!!! To say that they were wandering totally misses the fact that God was with them the entire time. They may not have known where they were going or how they were going to get there, but God did. And as long as they followed Him, they would never get lost and they would definitely reach their destination, in His timetable and not their own.

And so it is with us as well. Sometimes it may seem as if we are wandering aimlessly through life, unsure of our route or our destination. Perhaps our life has taken a turn we neither anticipated nor planned and bears no resemblance to the life we envisioned in our youthful dreams. But take heart, if we have entrusted our life, our plans, our future to God, even if He takes us on a circuitous route, we can rest assured that we will arrive at the right destination at the right time. Because with Christ as our Savior, we are never wandering, we are following His lead.