Do You Have a Wilderness Mentality?

It’s Time to Move into the Promised Land

“The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying,

‘You have stayed long enough on this mountain.’”

Deuteronomy 1:6 (AMP)

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the story of Moses and how God used him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. After 300 years of slavery, they were finally free and on their way to the “Promised Land”—the land of Canaan that the Lord had given to them.

Upon leaving Egypt, the Israelites entered the wilderness for what should have been an 11-day journey. However, as you probably know, they wandered in the desert for 40 years!

So, what prevented them from entering the Promised Land? Was it their enemies, their circumstances, the trials along the way, or something entirely different that kept them from arriving at their destination?

Several years ago, God spoke to my heart and said, “The children of Israel spent forty years in the wilderness because they had a wilderness mentality.” I define a “wilderness mentality” as a wrong mindset. Right mindsets naturally benefit us, while wrong ones hurt us.

I absolutely love Deuteronomy 1:6. It was a message for the Israelites over 3,000 years ago, and I believe it’s a message for so many of us today: “The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying, ‘You have stayed long enough on this mountain.’”

God was telling them, “It’s time to move on—you have been here long enough!”

Similarly, our wrong mindsets can keep us stuck in the same place, never truly making any progress. Like the Israelites, we can keep going around and around the same mountain (dealing with the same problems)!

Throughout this 3030 Challenge, I will share several “wilderness mentalities” that can hold us back from God’s best for our lives, beginning with this one:

“My future is determined by my past and my present.”

The Israelites had no positive vision for their lives—no dreams. They knew where they came from, but they didn’t know where they were going. Everything was based on what they had seen and could see. They did not know how to have faith for their future.

Similarly, I came from a background of abuse. My childhood was filled with fear and torment, and my personality was a mess. I thought, How could anyone who has the kind of past I do ever really be all right? It’s impossible! However, Jesus said that He came to heal those who are sick, brokenhearted, wounded and bruised—those broken down by calamity.

You may have had a miserable past. You may even be in negative circumstances right now or facing situations that are so bad that it seems you have no real reason to hope. But regardless of where you’ve been or where you are in life right now, please know that your past or your present does not determine your future!

Make a decision to get a new mindset. No matter what has happened in your life, choose to believe that ...with God all things are possible (Mark 10:27 NKJV). With man, some things may be impossible, but we serve a God Who created everything we see out of nothing (Hebrews 11:3)!

Promises from God’s Word: Read the following Scriptures: Philippians 3:13; Haggai 2:9; Jeremiah 32:27; Isaiah 43:19. What promise or lesson does each of these verses teach us?

Is there something painful from your past that threatens your hope for the future? Take a few moments right now to pray:

Prayer: “Father, I can’t change my past, but I believe that You can give me a wonderful future. By faith, I give you the weight I have been carrying around—all the cares that have held me back from moving forward. Beginning right now, I decide to believe that my future is bright and filled with good things…because You say it is! In Jesus’ name, Amen.”