The Bible shows us that settling for less can rob us from the full design of destiny that God has ordained for our lives. At the end of the book of Joshua, Joshua addresses the children of Israel, as he is allotting the land of promise to the tribes, and he says in Joshua 18:3b:
“How long will you delay going in to possess the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you?”
The word raphah in the original Hebrew language translates literally as showing oneself as slack. Why does Joshua use this specific word? This is because Joshua is really asking the question of how long will you settle for less, rather than going up to the land, or going for the promises, God has ordained for you. For greater context we can look to the book of Judges to understand the promise that God had given.
“After the death of Joshua, the children of Israel inquired of the Lord, ‘Who should go up against the Canaanites first, in order to wage war against them?’ The Lord said, ‘Judah shall go up. Indeed, I have given the land into their hands'” (Judg. 1:1-2).
We see in this text, that the Lord is speaking in the past tense. He is saying that He has already given the land into his hands. God has already claimed the victory. The Lord did not say “I will give”, or “I hope to give”, but rather He says “I have given.”
So how does this apply to our lives? Well, as we can see, the Israelites were in a battle over the land, but God had already given it to them even before they fought the Canaanites. The Bible does not just tell us this story so we know it happened. Rather, it is so we can understand that God does not want us to simply settle when we have a battle for our destiny.
You see, when things are difficult, or when we have an obstacle that we need to overcome, we must understand that this does not mean we should just give up on the things that God has set out for us to accomplish. The Bible shows us that victory is God’s plan for all of us, as it says in 1 Corinthians 15:57-58:
“But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”
Dr. Michelle Corral examines what the Bible teaches us about our destiny on the latest episode of Day of Destiny on the Charisma Podcast Network, which you can listen to here. {eoa}
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