Break camp and Advance

^{by: carole l. haines}

⁶ The Lord our God said to us at Horeb, “You have stayed long enough at this mountain. ⁷ Break camp and advance…”  (Deuteronomy 1:6-7a NASB)

I have been through a few upsetting disappointments and set-backs over the last several years.  I have tried to seek the Lord, and listen for His directions; but even when I have followed what I thought was His plan, I have hit walls.  The enemy has been at work lately, pounding the same old nail into my tender ear, “You’re a failure,” he repeats, like a broken record, it repeats over and over again. I have grieved each set back and moved forward, as best I knew how, to follow the Lord.  But this last one, well, it knocked me off my feet, and I can’t seem to get up again.  I literally am so flabbergasted by what happened, I have no idea how to proceed.  How do we move on from these kind of places in our lives? The verse that is coming to my mind right now is,

He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. (Psalm 40:2 NASB)

Now the word “mire” means, deep mud, or clay, the dregs.  I look at those words and I see 3 things that can feel like mire in our lives.

1) Emotions, feeling down in the dumps, scraping bottom, in the dregs of life

2) circumstances, being stuck in a bad place due to no fault of our own, just life’s typical difficulties.

3) captivity, being stuck because of our own wrong choices or rebellion.

I have been in mire for every single one of those reasons at some point in my life.  But the beautiful truth about God, is that He is able and willing to reach down and save us from any and all of those mires into which we have fallen.  Here is another verse where that word is used:

Save me, O God, For the waters have threatened my life. ² I have sunk in deep mire, and there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and a flood overflows me. ³ I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched; My eyes fail while I wait for my God. (Psalm 69:1-3 NASB)

The Psalmist cries out to God, admits the issue, be it sin, or rebellion, fear, hard luck, whatever.  He cries out to God for help, and admits his deep need for God’s saving hand.  God hears us when we call on Him like this.  He hears and He responds, in His time and way.  I love what God says to Moses above, “Break camp and Advance,” so let’s do that.  Cry out to God with me, today, wherever you feel stuck in your life, and with God’s help, we will break camp and advance together.