As a part of the Oasis Rest International team, I get to witness something beautiful and challenging: watching Christian leaders step into seasons of deep rest, and then step back out to the work God has called them. I pray for our hosts and guests all the time, especially in these moments of transition with transformation in heart. As I too continue learning to walk as a daughter and co-laborer with God, I am learning to receive His encouragement and understanding for the provision he provides in certain seasons and the work of tending and cultivating he sets my hands to in his timing and way.
If You’ll Wait a Little Longer
A while back, I was reflecting on Esau selling his birthright for a bowl of stew. What if he had just waited a little longer, trusting the Lord would provide?
I pictured myself in his position with a bowl of stew in front of me and so unexpectedly felt the Lord say, “You think what’s in front of you is everything you need, but if you’ll wait a little longer, I have a feast prepared for you and a birthright for you to keep.”
I shared this with a friend and she added that she saw me in a tent walking out to see a feast before me. I imagined a banquet table filled with people and food, until last week when that picture came to mind again. This time the colors outside the tent looked vivid and I saw a huge garden in rows, ripe and ready to be picked.
This led me to think about the promised land and all God told Israel was waiting and prepared for them.
The Promise God Prepared
“For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.” Deuteronomy 8:7-10
Here’s what feels fresh to me: even though God prepared the promise, the place where God really cared for them with the most direct provision – where He, as someone told me, “really babysat them” – was actually in the wilderness.
- Manna and quail
- Cloud and fire
- Water from the rock
- Healing from the serpent
For forty years, they never had to wonder where their next meal was coming from or how to navigate. God handled it all. Crossing the Jordan meant stepping into the promise, but also stepping out from under forty years of supernatural provision.
When the Manna Stopped
“While the people of Israel were encamped at Gilgal, they kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month in the evening on the plains of Jericho. And the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate of the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. And the manna ceased the day after they ate of the produce of the land. And there was no longer manna for the people of Israel, but they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.” Joshua 5:10-12
Think about it: an entire generation had never planted a seed, never tended a field, never worried about irrigation or harvesting. They would have had to relearn it all from scratch. Even if Israel had remained faithful, the Promised Land would still have required patient, faithful work. The promise wasn’t rest from labor, it was meaningful labor in the place God prepared.
Attaining the promise doesn’t mean the work ends. It means the cultivation, harvest, and long-term tending begins.
The Wilderness and the Promise
I feel this for our guests in a way. At an Oasis retreat, they are extremely safe and provided for. Stepping out the door and going back to where God has placed them could be an exciting experience or a very difficult one. One guest recently said, “Thank you for helping me taste and see how good the Lord is. I hope I will continue to give Him space to be good to me when returning to my hard place.” God may still shelter and care for them very specifically, or He may give them the opportunity to relearn cultivation with Him.
Both experiences, the sheltered provision and the call to cultivation, are gifts from God. Neither is better. Both are needed in different seasons.
Maybe you’re more in the wilderness right now, and God is providing in ways you’ve never experienced before. That’s beautiful. Or maybe you’ve stepped into a promise, and you’re discovering it’s harder than you expected. The manna stopped. You’re having to learn (or relearn) how to tend to a garden. That’s also evidence you’re in the promise.
An Invitation to Reflect
Think back to that picture, stepping out of the tent into a garden ripe and ready to be picked. I invite you to put yourself with your imagination in that same place and ask God these questions:
- What has He provided for you in the wilderness?
- What cultivation work is He inviting you into now?
The wilderness wasn’t the destination. Neither is the promise. The destination is the life of long-term faithfulness in the land God has given. That’s where we learn to walk with Him not as dependent children, but as co-laboring sons and daughters.
“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” Galatians 6:9-10