The Captive Mindset

We started a series at my church called Out of the Wilderness. We are looking at wilderness narratives to help us understand where God is leading us in the future. This past week the senior pastor gave a sermon on Numbers 13 and 14. This is the story of spying out the promised land and how the people rebelled against God. You might know the song about it. It involves twelve men who spy on Cannon. Ten were... scared and two were not.

Well anyway, I have been thinking a lot about this sermon. It's really good. You can watch it here. My thoughts have been focused on this idea of a captivity mindset. This is something that is touched on in the sermon, but I have been thinking about it through the lens of trauma.

Complaints in the Desert

This is a manuscript of a sermon I preached for seminary. What I learned here has always stuck with me. I came across it today because I was thinking about the lessons we learn in the desert. The ways in which God uses the dry times, the times of waiting, the times of Advent, to teach us. Without the desert the Israelites would not have been ready for the promised land. It was those years of wandering in the desert that taught them how to trust in God. As Christians I think we move to quickly into the hope of Jesus. We don't learn the lesson of the dry time: that our present circumstances are not an indication of favor or abandonment by God. It is not God who changes, only our willingness to follow Him.