Your Eyes Are On Canaan, But Your Mind Is In Egypt!

YOUR EYES ARE ON CANAAN, BUT YOUR MIND IS IN EGYPT!

EXODUS 16:1-3

(ROMANS 8:1-5)

As I continue to grow and mature in life, and in the Lord, I have discovered that in order to achieve success, or attain a goal, you must have a fixed mind... In planning a brighter tomorrow you must anticipate the many pitfalls and potholes that you have to encounter on the road of life... I’ve also learned that anything that is worthwhile is bound to be a bitter battle. The higher the hill upon which you plan to build your castle, the harder the climb is to reach its top... To reach the top, you must have your eyes and your mind focused on the same thing. A focused individual is one who aims well at the target and pulls his bow of opportunity to the final stretch before letting his arrow of destiny fly...

The text informs us that Israel was in the wilderness on their way to Canaan. But they had begun to face some very bitter experiences along the way... The ghosts of hunger and thirst had raised their heads, and frightened them… They were frightened to the extent that they began to think about the times when they use to sit by the flesh pots of Egypt, and sing and eat. They became discouraged before they had hardly gotten started. They had been on the road only a few days, and but a few miles from Sinai. But yet, because they had missed a meal of two, they wanted to go back to the slave camps of Egypt...!

God had broken their chains, pulled a liquid gap out of a belching sea for the right of way, and caused the wind to burn it dry, exchanging slushy mud for drifting dust, protecting their tramping feet. And yet… They wanted to go back to making brick from mud-balls... Just to eat again from flesh pots... They wanted to sell their future for a bite to eat... Seeing that freedom was quite a costly venture, they feared to pay the price.... They had their eyes on Canaan, but their minds were on Egypt...!

They looked one way and thought another.... They talked freedom, but thought slavery.... They started out watching God as He beckoned them through the clouds by day and the fire by night.... But at the same time they held on to Pharaoh’s hand…! Canaan and Egypt were in the same valley but in extreme opposite directions. To reach one, you had to turn your back on the other...

To think about Egypt, their minds would have to trek across the burning desert sands, where the jackals hide and bark, back across the sea, where slime and slavery holds sway. But to think of Canaan, their minds would have to lift amidst the hills, twine and bend.... Among the cedars and the whispering pines... Canaan or Egypt… These were two great places in the affection of these people, one was the cradle of the race, and the other was the hope of their future.... Shackles in one, songs in the other.... Freedom in Canaan, slavery in Egypt...

They were halted between the call of chains and the call of wings... Chains to hold them to their past, but wings to lift them to new heights.... Chains of slavery or wings of freedom...! Both places pointed in different directions, they were at opposite ends of any journey... And when the test came, Israel dared to face it.

She would rather go back into bondage than to pay the price of victory... So many times we act like the children of Israel and we would rather go back into the bondage of the enemy than to fight for the victory… So many times we’d rather settle for the muck and the mire of mediocrity, than to strive for the pursuit and possession of the Promised Land… So many times in the body of Christ we can’t reach Canaan because we’re simply too busy thinking about Egypt…! Yes, our eyes are on Canaan, but our minds are on Egypt…!

As we celebrate yet another year… Another Church Anniversary that the Lord has allowed us to have… The question at hand is how can we break this vicious cycle…? How can one get off the ‘treadmill of life’ and progress in the things of God…? How can we focus our minds as well as our eyes on the ‘Canaan experience of our lives…?’ How do we reach the individual ‘promise lands’ of our lives without being detoured by the enemy…? The text presents to us three issues…

I. CHANGE YOUR FOCUS

The text states that as soon they hit the highway, they began to murmur against the leader, saying “We wish that we would have died by the hand of God in the land of Egypt, at least we would have had our stomachs full...”