Promised Rest

I started reading Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon last night.  It's a daily morning and evening reading each day for a year.  Coincidentally (or not), the very first reading was about the Israelites finally journeying out of the desert into Canaan.

"Israel's weary wanderings were all over, and the promised rest was attained." (emphasis mine)

Now, whether Spurgeon meant it or not, I was struck by the phrase he used, "promised rest" as perhaps a new way to think about the "Promised Land".  It's a little less concrete of a term.  To me, Promised Land signals a final landing place, a serious shift, a whole new outcome, or major change.  "Promised rest" doesn't.

Perhaps arriving out of the desert doesn't mean that major life situations need to change.  Perhaps reaching the "Promised Land" just means finding God's rest and peace after a difficult situation or life experience.  Learning to trust and rest in Him.  Or as Spurgeon says "where faith and hope have made the desert like the garden of the Lord."  Paradigm shift.

"...unbelief shudders at the Jordan which still rolls between us and the goodly land, but let us rest assured that we have already experienced more ills than death at its worst can cause us.  Let us banish every fearful thought, and rejoice with exceeding great joy, in the prospect that this year we shall begin to be 'forever with the Lord'." Spurgeon

I'm left encouraged.  This is the year that I will "eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan."  I'm not going to be stuck in the desert forever.  The light at the end of the tunnel is in sight.