WHEN SPIRITS DETERMINE VISAS

              In our text of Deuteronomy 30:3, Moses told the people of God that if they sinned, their sins would drive them out of the land (not minding that the Almighty Himself had given it to them) into a place of suffering; but when they would repent, God Himself in “compassion” was going to supervise their return to their land.  In other words, again, one’s physical location could be the result of a curse or a blessing.  Spirits more powerful than mortals could order the circumstances that determine a person’s physical location at given times.  All locations are not entirely a matter of choice or accident.  Spirits may determine visas.

Yonder grass often seems greener; land ‘abroad’ often seems better, and sometimes actually is in certain respects; yet it is as possible to be spiritually lost in a mansion of gold as any criminal in a cold dungeon of dragons.  Similarly, a wilderness dispensation could be no less the will of God than seasons in a lavish palace (Matthew 4:1; Psalm 23:1,4).  To be in either wilderness or palace does not necessarily make anyone less or more righteous than the other, less or more in ‘the will of God’ than the other.  The place matters less if God leads there.

Once it was said of the very Son of God: “Then was Jesus led up by the Spirit into the wilderness…” (Matthew 4:1, NKJV).  Strange.  Led “by the Spirit”?  The Spirit of God or another spirit?  “…Into the wilderness”?  “With the wild beasts”?   Can anyone truly say that a journey into wilderness is an “up” journey, because the Spirit led thither?   Maybe the place matters not as much as God’s presence or absence there, and “then” could just be a season, a phase, a time, a night in a life.

In that wilderness into which the Spirit had led Jesus, “the angels ministered unto him” (Mark 1:13).  It was as if it was being said of Jesus in the wilderness as of Joseph in jail: “the LORD was with him” (Genesis 39:23).  The Lord was with Joseph in jail no less than while he was the comfortable admiration in the prospering house of Potiphar his boss, and the divine Presence was noticeable, for “his master saw” it (Genesis 39:3).

              Jacob the fugitive found himself thrown by circumstances upon a desolate rocky place but discovered to his bliss that that very unlikely place was both “the house of God” and “the gate of heaven” (Genesis 28:17).  After twenty-one years, he returned there, by the orderings of the Supervising Spirit (Genesis 31:13).  Places don’t always look like what they truly are, and sometimes spirits order human steps (Psalm 37:23).

              Joseph was as much in the will of God while he passed through the prison of Egypt as when he got into the office of Prime Minister, even though he knew the difference between the two places and phases of God’s will when he got into the palace (Genesis 39:23).  It is safe to not hastily accept every throne or wilderness as if God had sent it (John 6:15; Matthew 6:13).  It is safe to not also hastily denounce it as if the devil were at work.  We cannot all be Job, or always be Job.  May God grant us “understanding of the times” – and the seasons – to know what to do; discernment to walk wisely (1 Chronicles 12:32; Acts 1:7).  Amen.

The paths that lead to greatness do not always look like their destination (Jeremiah 29:11).  There is a “valley of the shadow of death” through which the journey sometimes leads even when the good Lord is the Shepherd, but that Valley is usually a stop, before the lavish table prepared by Himself in the presence of the enemies.  In other words, the Valley before the Table (Psalm 23:4-5).  The wilderness is not the only location in His will; the Table also is.  The Table is not the only stop in the path through which the Good Shepherd leads; sometimes the Valley also is.  Ask Prophet Elijah in his race for life from Mount Carmel of the fire of God to Mount Horeb of the voice of God, with the Juniper-Tree valley of fear between both summits of great glory (1 Kings 18-19).

God’s pleasure is as able to take anyone into a palace, into truly greener pastures ‘abroad,’ yet we should seek Him, not just a place.  It takes God’s favour to usher anyone into a “large place.”  The Psalmist remarks, “I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place” (Psalm 118:5).  Sometimes, according to the Psalmist here, it takes “distress” to force or enable us to make the desperate Call that opens the gate to the “large place.”  It has been said that some people will never look up to God until He lays them flat on their backs.

              There is a place of tears, a place of “distress,” a place of desperate calls “upon the LORD”; and there is a further place beyond the distress; a “large place” of answered prayers.  Beyond “the valley of the shadow of death” is where God prepares a table for His victors and faithful followers “in the presence of [their] enemies” (Psalm 23:4-5).  Tears have a dispensation called “night” and an expiry date called “morning,” when joy comes (Psalm 30:5).

              It has been said that help does not come from abroad but from above.  In one such dilemma David had wondered, “From where will help come to me?”  He answered himself and said that he was going to look up to the hills of the Lord, because “My help comes from the LORD, Who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1-2, NKJV).

              Where you are, the places you have been to and can go to, the places you can never go to, for which you might never be given a visa or a pass, could be a sign of the pleasure or displeasure of God, or a sign of the intervention of devils (Acts 16:6-7; 1 Corinthians 16:9).  May God relocate you into a place of favour as you seek His pleasure.  But if the passage should pass through the valley, may He grant strength to the heart and the feet in that season while you “walk THROUGH” that trying path before your next great stop at the Table of bounties.  Amen.