From Wilderness to Promised Land

For many of us, as believers, the promised land is synonymous with fulfilling our destiny in Christ. Most of us were also taught that being in the wilderness means we’re not in the promised land. If we find ourselves in a wilderness, we’re probably navigating things like grief and shame. We believe being in the wilderness means missing out on the promise, or at the very least, a delay in experiencing the promise.

For a long time, I struggled with this grief, shame, and fear of missing out. But for the last few years, God has been challenging me to reexamine this and other misconceptions I had about the wilderness.

In the Bible, the wilderness and the promised land are not mutually exclusive. The promised land isn’t just surrounded by wilderness. It’s also comprised mostly of wilderness areas, with farms, cities, and towns interspersed throughout.

And in some cases in the Bible, the wilderness became the promised land. This transformation came about over time through natural and supernatural historic events. It also happened through an interplay between God’s promises and the resolve of a few people.

These people obeyed God. But far from a blind, robotic carrying-out of orders, they were engaged in wholehearted partnership. This partnership has the capacity to change not just our own hearts and sense of identity but to transform our surroundings, too. Let’s look at a few examples.

In Genesis 22:1-18,  God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Moments before Abraham follows through, God stops him. This story, sometimes called “the binding of Isaac,” is a troubling and hotly debated passage.

Notice that when Abraham sets out to sacrifice his son, he describes his reason for going to Mount Moriah (which was in the wilderness at that time) as “worship.” How can we develop a healthy understanding of sacrifice when God appears to ask something that is the definition of insanity? God seems to be asking Abraham to do something that goes against his very nature. We’ve probably all twisted the truth in this passage in an effort to make some kind of sense of it.

Whether Abraham trusted God’s character enough to know he wouldn’t be asked to follow through or knew God’s nature well enough to believe in the resurrection, we don’t know. We do know that spiritually, a seismic shift happened on that mountain that day. But we won’t see the full impact of it for several generations.

Take a look at Deuteronomy 12:11. Moses is giving his final instructions to the people before they leave the wilderness areas they’ve been living in for the last forty years. They’re headed to the promised land, which is also a land with many distinct wilderness areas. In this verse, he’s instructing them specifically about how God wants to be worshiped.

The Hebrew text displays some striking similarities between this passage and the story of the binding of Isaac. A distinct Hebrew word is used for the specific type of offerings they will make, and it’s the same one Abraham was commanded to make.

There’s also a repeat of the language around ”the place where I will show you.” In both cases, God is asking them to set out in a general direction without knowing exactly where he wants to be worshiped and being told that God will show them the place when they get there.

But the most striking similarity is something the text doesn’t explicitly tell us, at least not yet. The “place where I will show you” is the same place in both stories! The mountain where God led Abraham and Isaac is the same mountain where, centuries later, the temple will be built by Abraham and Isaac’s descendants.

Skipping ahead to 2 Samuel 24:18-25, we’re back on Mount Moriah. By this time, this area has become a Jebusite settlement, and David has conquered it. In a time of plague, God instructs David (through the prophet Gad) to buy this particular piece of land. At the time it was being used as a threshing floor, and God wants David to build him an altar there.

For a third time, we have God instructing someone to go to this specific place to worship him. What was originally complete wilderness has now been transformed into the epicenter of the promised land, in the capital city itself. This process happened over many centuries, at least partly as a result of key acts of worship, obedience, and partnership with God.

The wild mountain became a threshing floor. The threshing floor became an altar. And that altar became the place where, a generation later, the temple would be built.

What do you think God is revealing to you about your own wilderness experiences through the progression in these passages?

Hannah Kallio is an Israeli who’s at home in France, Italy, and Minnesota. A homemaker who had it all, gave it all away, and lived out of a backpack. She loves one man, 5 kids, and the crazy story God is writing in their lives even more than palm trees, ancient ruins, and deepest dark chocolate. She writes, coaches, speaks, sings, and creates her guts out at hannahkallio.org.

Photograph © Tyler Nix, used with permission