The Promised Land Is For You, Don't Believe Otherwise

​Maybe you’ve read the story in the Bible. The Israelites lived in Egypt for over 400 years. In the early years, they were favored guests - protected and provided for. But in the later years they became victims of systemic oppression: forced labor, brutality, dehumanization, and even infanticide.

Intergenerational trauma.

So Moses was called on by God to carry out one of the greatest rescue missions in history - to free them from Egypt and lead them toward a promised land. A land flowing with milk and honey.

The rescue mission was a success; Moses did indeed free them. But as it turns out, freedom came quickly. Healing did not.

After the rescue, the Israelites didn’t march straight into the promised land. Instead, they wandered in the desert for forty years. Not because God lost his way, but because fear kept reappearing.

When food felt uncertain, they panicked. When water ran low, they complained. When danger loomed, they longed for Egypt. Again and again, a people freed from slavery found themselves unable to trust freedom.

What they had been delivered from changed faster than what was happening inside them.

The wilderness became a long, slow re-learning. Where a generation formed in trauma gave way to one formed in trust. The desert wasn’t just a delay between Egypt and promise. It was the space where God patiently worked to remove Egypt from their hearts before inviting them into a land they weren’t yet ready to believe was truly theirs.

For the longest time, the Israelites settled for less because for generations their traumas had taught them to accept that they WERE less.

I wonder how many of us are wandering in deserts - with goodness just on the other side and within our reach - because we've experienced seasons in our lives that taught us to settle for less.

Who has settled for relationships that are distant, inconsistent, or unsafe - not because we don’t want more, but because more never felt reliable? We tell ourselves not to expect too much. We stay quiet rather than risk rejection. We accept crumbs of connection because at some point that was all that was available.

Who has stopped pursuing work that feels meaningful and settled for what feels safe? We choose predictability over purpose. We downplay gifts because standing out once made us targets. So we stay in jobs that pay the bills but slowly starve the soul.

Who has come to accept inner narratives that say, this is as good as it gets. We don’t ask for help. We don’t ask for more. We don’t cross the river. Not because the land is unavailable, but because somewhere along the way we learned that wanting more was dangerous.

The tragedy of the wilderness isn’t that the land was unreachable.
It’s that trauma convinced them the land wasn’t for them.

And I wonder how often the same is true for us.

I am here to assure you, no matter what your past, the promised land you long for is absolutely for you!