God’s desire is to speak to you and guide you. He has beautiful plans for your life, and his desire is in no way for you to miss those plans because you’re stuck in confusion. The example of the Israelites shows us God does speak and God does guide, but when we reject what God is saying and where he is leading, our ears become closed to what God has to say and our feet grow stuck.



Will you listen? Will you go?



How about when it scares you? How about when it doesn’t make sense? How about when you don’t want to?



Your willingness to listen and follow in obedience determines exactly how many of God’s good plans get forfeited here.



Our Bible tells us that God had spoken to his people in clear and powerful ways as he lead them out of slavery Egypt. They were daily recipients of a miraculous show of provision and protection. But just when they were on the threshold of God’s promise, they stopped. They stopped moving forward. They stopped trusting. They stopped being grateful. And when they stopped, God stopped.



Opportunities were cancelled. Destiny was forfeited. Promises were left unfulfilled. And NONE of that was God’s will, it was his peoples’ choice.



Now you and I have a choice. Will we stop trusting God when it gets hard? Will we stop moving forward when we can’t see where it leads? Will we stop being grateful when it’s not exactly as we wished? God still has opportunities aligned for you. He still has a destiny that is beyond your wildest dreams. He has promises spoken over your life from the day he first imagined you. And all of that is on the line with your choices.



What you do here matters.



In Numbers 14, we read of God’s people making the choice to listen to the voice of fear over the voice of faith. The enemy they faced on their journey seemed impossible to conquer, and in their fear, they forgot the God who had already proven his ability to do the impossible. The Lord says the Israelites’ leader, Moses, in verse 11, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? Will they never believe me, even after all the miraculous signs I have done among them?”



They just couldn’t see how God would fulfill his promises. They couldn’t imagine they could ever be made strong enough. They couldn’t believe the battle could be won, the victory could be theirs, and their journey through the wilderness would end with their promised land of prosperity. So they stopped. And when they stopped, God stopped.



There, on the threshold of everything they had ever wanted, and everything God had promised, they stopped and they remained. Against God’s desired blessings for them, against his best plans, against his preferred future, he addresses their complaining and their refusal to move forward in verses 30-31. The Lord says to the people of Israel, “You will not enter and occupy the land I swore to give you. I will bring your children safely into the land and they will enjoy what you have despised. But as for you, you will drop dead in this wilderness.”



And guess what … that’s exactly what happened. The opportunities were cancelled. The destiny was forfeited. The promises were dismissed. God’s people stopped, so God stopped.



For the rest of their lives, they wandered in the wilderness falling so short of the overflowing abundant life that had been available to them.



Could that happen to you? Absolutely it could, my sister. God is serious about listening to him and walking in obedience with him. When you stop, he stops.