Milk and Honey

What do we need in order to survive? Oxygen, or course. Water. Food. Those are physical needs, and psychologists will tell you we all have emotional and spiritual needs, too. We all need love and acceptance. Most of what we think we need are actually wants.

But that's a different blog post.

So often we go though life with just the basics. We live in a desert with just enough water to last, and we ration it carefully. If it rains, we hoard it. If a stranger comes in need, we hide it.

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The Israelites wandered in the Wilderness for forty years. If you look at a map, they wandered the Arabian peninsula. It's in the Middle East, so I guess we all assume it is desert. But I have learned recently that it is not like the sandy Sahara or the hard-packed, cactus desert in Arizona. It's both and neither. It is a wilderness, for sure, with oases to break up the monotony and fresh water and places to rest. God led the Israelites through the Wilderness but He promised a land flowing with milk and honey.

Milk is like water. You need it. It's necessary for children to grow, and in a land without much potable water, it provides a body with hydration. God promised them what they needed for life.

But He promised more.

He promised honey. He promised some sweetness. It wasn't going to be all hardship and struggle, though there would be that, too, and the Wilderness was supposed to be boot camp, their training ground. But when they got to where they were going, there would be more than enough and there would be rest.

Jesus said in John 10:10, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." Satan wants to take what you have, but he doesn't even need to take it all. Just enough to make you hoard what's left, hide it from strangers, worry about losing it and not having enough.

But Jesus wants us to have life and have it abundantly. Our lives are meant to flow with milk and honey -- the basic and the sweet so that we can share with others.

Did you ever wonder why, as Golda Meir put it, God led them to the only place in the Middle East without oil? Because in the ancient world, Israel was the crossroads. Leaving Egypt and going to India? Gotta go through Israel. Want to travel to Greece? Have to go through Israel. Why did God do it that way? Because His people, the Israelites, and now Christians, were supposed to share what they had: the basic and the sweet. The milk and honey.

But in order to share it, you have to have it. "I came that they may have life and have it abundantly."

The abundant life is found in constant fellowship with Jesus. And just like any relationship, you have to carve out time and make it a priority. This is what I am working on now. I want the abundant life.

I want the basic and the sweet. I want the milk and honey.