Deuteronomy 2:3
“Ye have compassed this mountain long enough: turn you northward.”
Years ago when I was a boy, the church my father pastored was in the hills of California. Our church was literally in a cow pasture. For many months all we had to drive on to get to our church that was on the top of a hill was a muddy cow trail. In the winter months when it rained a lot, it was a mess trying to get to the top of the hill. If you didn’t get a running start, you would slide back and many people would get stuck in the mud. If a person didn’t know how to drive in the mud, many times they would spin their tires to the point that they buried their car down to the axle. This was never a pleasant situation to get people out of, but we shoveled and pushed to get the car moving forward to help it get out of its rut.
For thirty-eight years the children of Israel were in a rut of compassing Mount Seir. They wandered in the wilderness of Seir for thirty-eight years, and they seemed to get no closer to God’s perfect will. Finally, in the verse above, God plainly told them they had “compassed the mountain long enough.” He told them it was time for them to move on. That mountain represented years of murmuring, disobedience and rejection of God’s will. It represented dissatisfaction and disloyalty to God’s man. The fact is, this mountain was a bad rut they found themselves in, and God wanted them to move on.
Christian, if you are not careful, you will get yourself into a rut in life that will cause you to spin your spiritual wheels for years. I have watched Christians get in a rut and go nowhere, when all they needed to do was move on and leave their situation behind. Instead of wallowing in the past, many Christians could see great victory in their life if they would just move on. If they would move on, great victory is ahead. If they would move on, God’s presence will be with them. If they would move on, they will find the joy and satisfaction of God’s perfect will.
What is your Mount Seir from which you need to move on? Is your Mount Seir a hurt from a church? Many people have walked around their Mount Seir of hurt, only to miss God’s perfect will for their life. You can’t let the hurt from a past church cause you to miss the blessings of the church you are in. While you continue to compass your Mount Seir, you completely miss out on the great victories ahead. If a church has hurt you, then it’s time to move on. If a pastor from the past has hurt you, it’s time to move on. If a Christian brother or sister has hurt you, it’s time to move on.
Maybe your Mount Seir is faithlessness to step out on what God wants you to do with your life. Many Christians have the greatest intentions of doing something for God, but a Mount Seir of money or a successful career has sidetracked them from seeing God’s blessings in their life. God’s will is not going to get any closer until you decide to move on.
Let me ask you, what is your Mount Seir? What is it in your life that has you stuck and spinning your spiritual wheels? Whatever it is, it’s time to move on. Before you are great victories that God desires to give you, but you will never experience them until you move on. I challenge you today to identify your Mount Seir, and once you identify it, move on from it to your Promised Land. If you will move on, then the greatest victories of your life are ahead.