There’s a phrase that has been turning over in my heart—one you might recognize, though not quite in the form you learned it. We know the old carol, “I Wonder as I Wander.” But somewhere along the way, in the wilderness seasons of my own life, it became this: “I wander as I wander.”
Not poetic. But painfully true. Because there are seasons in faith when your feet move forward, your life looks functional, your faith is still intact… but inside, you’re wandering. You’re wondering. You’re unsure. You’re not falling apart, but you’re not settled either. You’re saved, but not always steady. You’re moving, but not always anchored.
There’s a moment in Scripture that has always touched something deep in me—something human, something honest, something that sounds a lot like the quiet place where most of us actually live. It’s that line in Deuteronomy where God gently says to His people, “You have stayed long enough at this mountain.” You can almost hear the tenderness in it, and a little sadness too. It’s the voice of a Father who has watched His children walk the same circle over and over again, long after they needed to.
And if we’re being truthful, we know what that feels like. Most of us don’t step straight from deliverance into joy. We come away from our Egypts—whatever they happen to be—and at first we’re grateful just to be out. But then life settles. Old habits rise again. Familiar fears whisper. We find ourselves thinking, “Why am I here again? Didn’t I pray about this already? Haven’t I walked this path before?” And God, with a patience that still surprises me, says what He once said to Israel: “You’ve stayed here long enough.”
The story of the wilderness wasn’t written for Israel alone. It was written for every believer who has discovered that the journey from bondage to freedom isn’t a straight line. It’s a wandering kind of journey. A growing kind of journey. A learning and unlearning kind of journey. It’s a journey where God isn’t merely leading us forward; He’s leading us inward—into the parts of our hearts that have been shaped more by Egypt than by Him.
Think about the Israelites. God got them out of Egypt in one night, but it took years for Egypt to get out of them. And the strange thing is, the distance from where they stood to where God wanted to take them was only eleven days. That always amazes me. Eleven days. And yet that little stretch of desert turned into forty long years.
It wasn’t the miles. It wasn’t the heat. It wasn’t the terrain. The real wilderness wasn’t under their feet—it was inside their minds. They didn’t wander forty years because the path was unclear, but because their hearts were. They knew how to leave a place, but they didn’t know how to enter one. They knew how to walk away from chains, but not how to walk toward promises.
And that is where their story becomes ours.
The truth is, you can be saved—genuinely saved—without really living like a free person. You can know Jesus and still carry an old heaviness in your thinking. You can walk with God and still circle the same emotional mountains over and over again. You can have your Red Sea behind you and still feel as if the wilderness has never quite left you alone.
I’ve met believers like that. And I’ve been one myself. People who love God with sincerity, yet quietly confess, “There has to be more than this. I’ve known Him for years… so why do I feel like I’m still wandering?”
There’s a reason. Most of the time, it isn’t a lack of faith—it’s a lack of vision. Not the kind of vision that sees the future, but the kind that sees yourself the way God sees you. When Israel looked ahead, they didn’t see a life God had prepared—they saw danger. When they looked back, they remembered slavery more clearly than miracles. When they looked around, they noticed sand, hunger, dryness, difficulty. They judged God’s heart by their circumstances instead of the other way around.
And quietly, gently, that can happen to us too.
We get used to a certain way of thinking. We become accustomed to old memories. We make peace with an inner heaviness and call it “normal.” Without realizing it, we settle into the wilderness and make it home. We speak desert language without thinking about it: “Things never change,” “This is just who I am,” “I’ll always struggle with this,” “This is my life,” “I guess I’m stuck here.” The wilderness begins to shape our vocabulary, and then it shapes our expectations, and then—eventually—it shapes our faith.
But what if God is saying something different over your life today? What if the Spirit is tugging at you the way He tugged at Israel, not with condemnation, not with impatience, but with a steady invitation: “Child, you’ve been circling this long enough. I want to take you forward.”
Let me say something that may sound a little surprising: The Promised Land is not a symbol of heaven. It’s a picture of spiritual maturity—of life in Christ where peace and joy aren’t things you chase, but things that flow from who you are becoming. It’s the life where God’s presence is more real to you than your old fears, where hope is no longer something you borrow from others but something that grows naturally within you. A life where you’re not constantly bracing for disappointment or scanning the horizon for trouble, but instead walking with a quiet confidence that the One who delivered you is still leading you.
That is the life God wanted for Israel. It is the life Jesus wants for you.
The difference between the wilderness and the Promised Land isn’t geography. It’s trust. It’s willingness. It’s the steady letting go of old narratives. It’s allowing God to teach you how to think in a new way—how to see differently, talk differently, hope differently.
When Israel stood at the edge of the Red Sea, they were terrified. But after the water opened and they walked through and saw Pharaoh’s army drown behind them, something beautiful happened. For the first time since leaving Egypt, they sang. They lifted their voices in celebration. But here’s the heartbreaking truth: they sang the right song, but on the wrong side. God wanted them to sing before the waters parted. He wanted them to trust Him enough to rejoice while the threat was still visible.
And that’s where many of us get stuck. We keep waiting to feel better before we move forward spiritually. We wait to feel strong before we surrender something difficult. We wait to feel hopeful before we talk to God honestly. We wait to feel peace before we step out in faith. But spiritual life doesn’t work that direction. It grows the other way. Peace often follows obedience. Joy often follows surrender. Strength often follows movement. God says, “Take the step, and I’ll meet you in it.”
I love how Scripture describes Jesus in Isaiah—that He did not judge by what His eyes saw or by what His ears heard. He lived from a deeper source. He didn’t let circumstances define reality. And He invites us to do the same.
Some of us judge our entire future by what we’ve known in the past. We brace ourselves because the past wasn’t kind. We expect something to go wrong because something once did. We become cautious not because God has failed us, but because life has disappointed us. But the promises of God were never meant to bend beneath the weight of our old experiences. They were meant to lift us beyond them.
You may have lived with discouragement a long time. You may have carried certain fears for so many years that you don’t know who you are without them. But hear me gently: that doesn’t mean this is where you stay. The wilderness may have shaped your story for a season, but it is not your address. You don’t have to wander as you wander.
There’s a moment when the heart has to decide, “I’ve lived this way long enough. I’m not settling here. I’m not circling this mountain anymore. With God’s help, I’m ready to walk forward.”
And maybe—just maybe—that moment is today.
When we talk about wandering, we often picture movement—dust rising behind footsteps, a long stretch of sand ahead, the sense of not knowing where the next turn leads. But some of the deepest wandering happens without movement at all. It happens inside us. You can sit still and wander. You can stay in one place and wander. You can attend church faithfully and wander. Wandering isn’t about motion—it’s about uncertainty of heart.
Israel wandered in circles, but their feet were only doing what their thoughts had learned to do. They followed the patterns they trusted most—the familiar ones. Fear is familiar. Doubt is familiar. Old pain is familiar. Egypt was painful, but it was familiar. And sometimes familiarity feels safer than freedom because at least you know what to expect.
One of the most sobering lines in the book of Numbers describes the night Israel heard the report of the Promised Land and wept until morning. They cried, not because God had failed, but because they didn’t believe joy was possible. They looked at the land God had prepared and didn’t see blessing—they saw danger. They looked at giants and forgot God. They looked at their own limitations and forgot the One who had carried them out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
That is what a wilderness mindset does. It interprets God through the filter of fear. It brings yesterday’s grief into tomorrow’s possibilities and calls it wisdom. It teaches you to expect disappointment long before anything has even happened.
I think many of us know what that feels like. When someone says, “Good things are coming,” something inside us quietly says, “Let’s wait and see.” When God opens a door, part of us whispers, “It won’t last.” When we sense Him nudging us into something new, old memories stir and say, “Remember the last time you tried that?” The wilderness has a voice, and it’s persuasive if you listen long enough.
Sometimes the wilderness trains us to brace for impact instead of relax into promise. It teaches us to be alert for danger instead of open to joy. And if we’re honest, some of us have lived with that posture for so long it doesn’t even feel unusual anymore. It feels like being responsible. It feels like protecting ourselves. It feels like staying realistic.
But the Spirit nudges us gently and asks, “Realistic according to what? According to Egypt? According to yesterday? According to the worst thing that happened? Or according to what God is saying over your life right now?”
Israel had heard God’s promises. They had seen evidence of His power. They had watched Him move on their behalf in ways that defied explanation. But when trouble arose, the memories of the miracles faded quickly, and the wilderness thinking took over. They began to imagine the worst possible outcome, and then they lived as though it was inevitable.
It is a strange thing how the mind works. When fear becomes familiar, faith feels foreign. When discouragement becomes automatic, hope feels suspicious. When disappointment becomes expected, joy feels almost uncomfortable. The wilderness teaches you how to survive, but it never teaches you how to live.
There comes a moment when God, in His love, begins to confront that. Not harshly. Not with condemnation. But the way a parent gently lifts a child’s chin and says, “Look at Me. You're looking in the wrong direction.”
One of the most meaningful things we can learn from Israel’s story is that spiritual growth doesn’t begin with willpower—it begins with attention. What you give your attention to shapes the atmosphere of your heart. Israel gave most of its attention to the things that frightened them. They spoke more about obstacles than about God. Their conversations were filled with doubt, with “what ifs,” with rehearsals of old hurts and imagined disasters. And every time they talked that way, their imagination cooperated. It supplied more reasons to fear. More images of trouble. More mental rehearsals of defeat.
It isn’t that they were ungrateful people. It isn’t that they didn’t love God. It’s that they didn’t yet know how to give their attention to the right things. They were so used to surviving that they didn’t know how to anticipate anything else.
That’s why worship is so important—not worship as an event, but as posture. Every time Israel complained, Moses responded differently. He would go before God and bow. He didn’t always know the answer. He didn’t always understand what God was doing. But he had learned something Israel hadn’t yet discovered: worship clears the fog.
Worship helps you see the situation for what it truly is—small in the hands of a very big God. Worship helps you remember what fear makes you forget. Worship steadies the heart when the mind is spinning. Worship doesn’t force you to ignore your troubles. It simply reminds you that your troubles are not the ultimate reality. God is.
And worship doesn’t require everything to be peaceful. In fact, it’s most powerful when nothing is going right. Anyone can praise God after the sea parts. But to praise Him with Pharaoh behind you and water in front of you—that’s the kind of worship that shifts the atmosphere. That’s the kind that opens doors inside the heart long before doors open on the outside.
I’ve noticed in my own life that wandering gets worse when I stop worshiping. Not the singing part—that’s lovely, but not what I mean. I mean the kind of worship that takes a breath in the middle of uncertainty and says, “Lord, I’m choosing to trust You right now. I don’t see how this is going to work out, but You do. I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but You’ve never failed me. Help me see Your goodness here, not just later.”
Something happens when we pray like that. It's subtle. Quiet. But real. The wilderness loses a little of its grip. The mind begins to unclench. The inner wandering slows down. Not because the circumstances have changed—but because we have.
Sometimes wandering stops when the heart finally sits still long enough for God to whisper truth where fear has been speaking too loudly.
There’s another reason Israel wandered so long. They didn’t have a positive vision for their lives. When they thought about the future, they didn’t think about promise—they thought about survival. They weren’t imagining what God could do; they were worrying about what could go wrong.
Hope felt risky to them. And maybe it feels risky to you too. When you’ve been disappointed enough, hope feels like an invitation to get hurt again. When life has wounded you deeply, hope can feel almost irresponsible. We become cautious with our joy. We keep our expectations low so that life can’t take too much from us.
But low expectations have a cost. They keep you wandering in emotional circles long after God has opened the way forward. They keep you looking backward, because backward feels known. The writer of Hebrews says that if the great heroes of faith had kept thinking about the places they left, they would have gone back. That is how powerful the mind is. You can be on your way to promise, and your thoughts can lead you straight back to Egypt if you dwell on it long enough.
The wilderness has a gravity to it. It tries to pull you back into old patterns, old stories, old ways of seeing yourself. But God has a way of interrupting that gravity. Sometimes it’s a Scripture that catches your attention. Sometimes it’s a word spoken by a friend. Sometimes it’s a moment of unexpected quiet when a realization breaks through: “I don’t have to live the way I used to live. I don’t have to think the way I used to think. God has something ahead of me that is better than what’s behind me.”
You can almost hear God saying, “Look up. There’s something out there. Something I prepared for you. Something that requires trust, but it also brings joy. Something that lifts you out of wandering and sets your feet toward promise.”
But to walk toward it, you have to let go of what lies behind.
And sometimes the hardest thing to let go of is not the pain of the past—but the familiarity of it.
Israel would rather return to slavery than walk into uncertainty. That tells you everything you need to know about how powerful the wilderness mentality can be. It convinces you that anything unfamiliar must be dangerous—even if the unfamiliar thing is freedom.
But you weren’t created to live in circles. You weren’t created to replay the same patterns. You weren’t created to exist in emotional survival mode. You weren’t created to wander as you wander.
You were created to move forward with God—even when the path feels unfamiliar.
As we draw this message together, there’s something tender I want you to hear—something that sits quietly underneath the entire wilderness story. We often picture Israel as stubborn, ungrateful, unable to trust. And yes, there’s truth in that. But underneath all of it was something deeply human: they were frightened. They had never lived in freedom before. They didn’t know how to picture a life that wasn’t shaped by fear. They knew how to survive, but not how to flourish. They knew how to run from danger, but not how to walk toward promise.
And God understood that. He wasn’t surprised by their fear. He wasn’t angry that growth took time. He wasn’t disappointed that their trust needed to be nurtured slowly. He walked with them, not because they were strong, but because they belonged to Him. He guided them, not because they had perfect faith, but because He had perfect patience.
I want you to remember that as you think about your own wandering. God is not scolding you. He’s not folding His arms and sighing in frustration. He’s not comparing you to others who seem further along. He’s walking with you. He’s teaching you. And at this very moment, He’s inviting you gently, lovingly, to take another step forward.
Maybe your wandering has been happening in places no one sees. On the outside, your life may look stable, respectable, even blessed. But inside, there may be a restlessness you haven’t been able to name. A heaviness you can’t quite explain. A longing for something more than just surviving. A sense that your life in Christ was meant to have more peace in it, more joy, more freedom, more "settledness".
That sense is holy. It’s the Spirit nudging your heart—saying, “This wilderness is not your destination. This is not where you were meant to build your house. I have more for you.”
Sometimes the first step toward the Promised Land is not movement at all. It is honesty. The simple honesty of admitting, “Lord, I’ve been stuck here. I’ve been circling things inside me. I’ve been listening to fear more than to You. I’ve let the past have too much influence on my future. I’ve been wandering as I wander.”
It is amazing how much changes when we stop pretending we are fine and start opening ourselves to God’s voice again. The wilderness becomes less intimidating the moment you stop facing it alone. The giants shrink a little when you remember you never fight them by yourself. And the Red Sea isn’t nearly as threatening when you realize the God who parted it once has not lost His touch.
One of the gentlest ways God moves us out of wandering is by changing how we speak to ourselves. Not in the sense of “positive thinking,” but in the sense of seeing ourselves the way He sees us. The Israelites didn’t think of themselves as people destined for promise. They thought of themselves as victims of circumstances. People who had to make the best of what life handed them. People with a fragile future. Their sense of identity never rose above the fear that had been embedded in them in Egypt.
We do the same thing sometimes. We speak to ourselves in ways God never would. We call ourselves failures because something didn’t work out. We call ourselves weak because something hurt us. We call ourselves unimportant because someone overlooked us. We call ourselves unworthy because we can’t forget something from our past. We carry self-accusations that God never gave us. We rehearse words He never spoke.
And then we wonder why the wilderness feels like home.
The way out begins when the way we speak to ourselves begins to sound more like the way God speaks to us. Not with flattery. Not with empty affirmations. But with truth. The kind that steadies the heart.
Truth like: “Child, I am still with you.”
Truth like: “You are not ruined.”
Truth like: “Your future is not determined by your past.”
Truth like: “There is joy ahead of you.”
Truth like: “You can trust Me here.”
Truth like: “You don’t have to wander anymore.”
Israel wandered because they trusted their feelings more than God’s voice. And feelings are powerful things. They’re not bad. They’re not sinful. They’re not something to be ashamed of. But they’re not something to build your life on either. Feelings can inform you, but they cannot guide you safely. They can tell you what hurts, but they cannot tell you who God is. They can remind you of danger, but they cannot reveal your destiny.
God never asked Israel to deny their fear. He asked them to walk with Him in spite of it. And He asks us the same.
There’s something else that kept Israel wandering—and it’s something we often overlook. They were waiting for the Promised Land to change how they felt before they entered it. They wanted a better mindset, a calmer heart, a clearer path, before they took the step. But spiritual life doesn’t work that way. The step itself is often the thing that changes us.
Think about how many breakthroughs in Scripture came after someone stepped forward when nothing looked different yet. Abraham set out without knowing the destination. Peter stepped onto water before the waves calmed. The lepers went to the priest before they saw healing. The woman with the issue of blood reached out before her body changed. The disciples rolled away the stone before Lazarus walked out.
Movement with God often precedes the miracle.
So if you’re waiting to feel more spiritual before you step out of your wandering… you may never move. If you’re waiting for courage to rise before you obey… you may stay where you are. If you’re waiting for fear to disappear before you enter what God has prepared for you… you may stand at the edge of promise for years.
Sometimes stepping forward is the very thing that makes fear loosen its grip.
The Israelites didn’t cross the Jordan because they became brave. They crossed because God said, “It’s time.” And maybe it’s time for you. Not because you feel ready. Not because you feel strong. Not because everything in your life is tidy. But because God is speaking the same gentle words over your heart that He spoke to theirs: “You’ve stayed long enough at this mountain.”
That doesn’t mean you have to figure out everything overnight. It doesn’t mean the wilderness was wasted. It doesn’t mean there won’t be challenges ahead. It simply means you’re not meant to keep circling the same emotional terrain. God has something for you on the other side of trust. Something that begins to change the way you see things. Something that softens the heaviness inside. Something that brings joy where there’s been only survival. Something that feels like home.
And here’s the truth: you don’t cross the Jordan in one giant leap. You cross with one step. And then another. And another. Small, steady, honest steps. Steps of letting go. Steps of choosing trust. Steps of opening your heart again. Steps of believing God has a future for you that is not shaped by your past.
God does not ask you to do all of it this morning. But He does ask you to take the next step in front of you.
Maybe that step is prayer.
Maybe that step is forgiveness.
Maybe that step is asking for help.
Maybe that step is laying something down.
Maybe that step is hope.
Maybe that step is simply admitting, “Lord, I don’t want to wander anymore.”
Whatever it is, you take that step with Him, not for Him. And He meets you in it. Not with pressure. Not with scolding. But with presence.
One of the most beautiful things about the wilderness story is that God never abandoned His people in their wandering. He was with them in every circle they walked. He fed them when they complained. He guided them when they doubted. He remained faithful when they weren’t. And when the day finally came for them to step into promise, He led them across the river just as faithfully as He had led them out of Egypt.
That same God walks with you today.
You may feel like you have wandered far, or wandered long, or wandered quietly where no one sees. But God sees. And God knows. And God is not finished.
So if you sense Him nudging you forward, let that be a comfort, not a burden. It means He is near. It means the wilderness is not forever. It means promise is closer than you think.
And if your heart can whisper even a small prayer this morning—“Lord, I’m ready to stop circling. Take me forward.”—then the journey has already begun.
You don’t have to wander as you wander.
Not when God Himself is walking beside you.
Not when His voice is calling you by name.
Not when His promises were written with you in mind.
Not when He has prepared a future where peace is possible, and joy is natural, and trust feels like home.
You’ve stayed long enough at this mountain.
Let Him lead you on.
Closing Prayer
Lord, some of us have wandered a long time. We’ve lived with thoughts that have kept us circling. We’ve carried fears that have shaped our expectations. We’ve learned to survive, but not always to rest. We bring all of that to You today. Teach us to hear Your voice more clearly than the echoes of our past. Teach us to trust Your heart more deeply than our feelings. Take us by the hand and lead us forward—one honest step at a time. Thank You that the wilderness is not our home, and that You walk with us until we cross into the life You’ve prepared. In Jesus’ name, amen.
