What If God Wasn't In Your Promised Land

Tonight, I finished reading Redemption by Mike Wilkerson, one of the pastors at Mars Hill Church. The book is written with the purpose of pointing people to the freedom and healing that is found in the gospel of Jesus. Right toward the end of the book, there is a section on "reaching the promised land" that really hit home with me. By way of setup, Pastor Mike is using the story of the Israelites' exodus from Egypt as a framework for how the journey into freedom often looks in our individual lives. We are seeking freedom from a particular sin or healing from a particular wound and we view that as the promised land. Wilkerson does a fantastic job of pointing to one very significant pitfall that many who are seeking freedom or healing can fall into:

No doubt, you have some situation in your life that demands attention: that enslaving addiction, fear, or wound, an unfulfilled longing to have children, or a marriage in crisis. You long for freedom. You know what it is to wander in the wilderness, and you are desperate to arrive at "home."

Heaven, prefigured by the Promised Land, is the true home of every Christian. But what do you imagine awaits your arrival there? John Piper asks:

Would you be satisfied to go to heaven - have everybody there in your family that you want there, have all the health and restoration of your prime, and everything you disliked about yourself fixed, have every recreation you've ever dreamed available to you, and have infinite resources of money to spend - would you be satisfied...if God weren't there?

If you were completely free from the urge to look at porn and were totally fulfilled emotionally spiritually, relationally, and sexually, would you be satisfied without Jesus?

If you were finally assured that your friends, your spouse, and your pastor had your best interests at heart, loved you, and would never hurt you, would you be satisfied without Jesus?

...Here, near the end of a book that you probably picked up because you were seeking transformation and freedom, it may be hard to swallow the idea that such goals could be hollow. But here's the catch: they are only hollow when they are not filled with God. To put it differently, they are best enjoyed as gifts wrapped in the much larger and all-satisfying gift of being in God's presence, which is to say, the gift of God himself.

You see, we don't just get peace from God; God is our peace - he gives us himself...We don't just get joy from God; he is our joy - he gives us himself. He is our hope, and he gives us himself; our love, and he gives us himself.

...So it isn't that we should stop wanting freedom from addiction, healing for the wounds of our past, or repair for our broken relationships today. It is that these blessings all come to us in God's presence and lead us further into his presence. He is the greatest gift he gives.

Again, this book has been very challenging and encouraging to me as a pastor, a believer, and a sinner. I highly recommend it to anyone who knows that they need healing from hurts or freedom from addictions. I also hope that you'll join me in repenting for those times when I seek God in order to receive something from him without being interested in receiving God himself.