DAY 3: Stability from Movement

José and his family have moved many times. They have moved from place to place so that his mom and dad can work in the fields in order to provide basic needs for the family. In each new home, he has to make new friends and be the new kid all over again. Furthermore, he has to live in each new place knowing that they will move again once the work here is completed. It seems like the moving will never stop. Will there ever be a place of stability for José?

Abraham was always moving and never seemed to be settled in any one place for very long. When God called him, he was already moving from Ur to Haran (about 650 miles). God commanded that Abraham leave Haran (and his family and all things familiar to him) in order to move the roughly 450 miles to Shechem in the land of Canaan. From there, a famine forced Abraham to move once again from Shechem to Bethel and from Bethel to Egypt (perhaps another 250 miles). Once in Egypt, Pharaoh sent Abraham and Sarah away, and they moved back into the Land of Canaan to Bethel and from Bethel to Hebron. Abraham and Sarah were able to settle in Hebron for several years until they moved again to Beersheba in the land of the Philistines. As they moved from place to place, loading and reloading all of their possessions, God has been promising Abraham that his offspring would be given the entire land of Canaan as an everlasting possession (Genesis 17:8).

But none of Abraham’s descendants ever captured and lived in the entirety of Canaan. This is because God’s promise to Abraham was to be fulfilled in Jesus Christ who is in the line of Abraham. Jesus has already taken our sins upon himself and died on the cross as the forgiveness of our sins. He has already given us His perfect righteousness. He has defeated our primary enemies (sin, death, and Satan) in His resurrection from the dead, He has ascended to the heavenly temple of God, He and the Father have already sent out the Holy Spirit, and He is currently making intercession for His people. But there will come a time in the future when He returns from heaven to Earth and brings with Him the New Heavens and the New Earth. This is the land that Abraham was promised. . . the Ultimate and True Canaan. . . heaven itself.

Until that glorious time, all Christians are aliens sojourning in this broken land. Let us pray for Jose and his family situation. Let us pray that they find great work and stability. But most of all, let us pray that they find their primary stability and hope in Jesus Christ.