Bibledoorajar: Journeying and Going Forth: Differences

     As I left my hometown this morning to bring a friend to the hospital for a procedure, we both looked ahead. There was a bit of fog and the clouds lay low on the horizon. As we rose up the slightest of hills it looked as if we were going to ascend into mountains and into the start of an exciting journey. But, alas, it was all an illusion of a great journey and instead we were going forth on a small journey to get a medical procedure and possible heart repair done.
    God instructed Moses to keep adequate records of everywhere His people went on their way to the Promised Land. Their journeys, along with every rest stop, are detailed in Numbers. When God told Moses it was time for them to continue on their journey, He told him to tell the people to go forth. For the people it might have just been another journey or an illusion of one, but for God it was a time for them to go forth. If you stop and think about it, they were to go forth in the same spirit as their father Abraham had done. God had called him to "Go forth out of thy land and out of thy kindred, and out of the house of thy father, and come into the land which I will shew thee." Genesis 12.
     To go forth in God's mind is to move out leaving all the past as done and go forth to things completely new as God has planned for us. He holds the power for the result of going forth. If I stop and think I can remember some of the journeys I have been on that I was aware of the "go forth" component. They are the best memories of all because I am so aware of Him and of how He lead the way.  Some people go forth to far flung places on the earth and others of us go forth with God not too far from the places we have always known. Either way, if we are aware of the "go forth" part we are at peace because of Him and His great power and interest in our journey. It is really wonderful to think about, don't you agree?

"Sometimes ’mid scenes of deepest gloom,
Sometimes where Eden’s bowers bloom,
By waters still, o’er troubled sea,
Still ’tis His hand that leadeth me."

                                 Joseph Henry Gilmore written during time of the Civil War in the United States