The Land of Just Enough!

Remember how the Lord your God led you through the wilderness for forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would really obey his commands. Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people need more than bread for their life; real life comes by feeding on every word of the Lord. For all these forty years your clothes didn’t wear out, and your feet didn’t blister or swell. So you should realize that just as a parent disciplines a child, the Lord your God disciplines you to help you. (Deut. 8:2-5 NLT)

The last few weeks, I have been talking about struggles. Tests, trials, and tribulation, all things that develop our character, and our relationship with God. This has all been an outpouring of what I have been experiencing. We know we are in a season where God is providing just enough. It seems that God is positioning us for greatness, but yet the “big breakthrough” sits on the horizon. Seems so close you could touch it, yet not. I truly feel like we are like the Israelites in the wilderness. Things are being taken care of, small and even quite big miracles in our lives, yet it is always just enough to keep us afloat. Not enough to truly be free. This puzzled me. I know God wants us to be blessed to be a blessing as God promised Abraham (Genesis 12:2), so why are we struggling to walk in what God has shown us?

Then I read a devotional from Bob Gass. He spoke of the Israelites and how God took them through 3 phases. First they were in the land of not enough, Egypt. Then the land of just enough, the wilderness, and then the land of plenty, the Promised Land. We are definitely in the “land of just enough” ; when I read this it really jumped out at me. Here is a piece of this devotional:

“He brought them through the wilderness of ‘just enough.’ God provided them with manna – just enough for each day. Now it’s no fun struggling to barely get by. But we tend to appreciate what we had to struggle for, and we learn to trust God more. Plus, living through seasons of ‘just enough’ builds into us a tenacity to keep moving toward better things

The good news is that in this land we will be provided for, and God is going to develop the character in us needed for the next place. The great news is that the land of plenty is around the corner, and we will be ready for it. If you have felt like you are in a place of just enough read this entire devotional, it will encourage you today.
Click here for the entire devotional.