NO ESCAPE!

Hello,

How are you doing today? I'm hoping you're doing fine and if you aren't, I pray that God fixes whatever it is that ails you.

Did I tell you I'm in law school? If I haven't already, I'm so sorry about that. I resumed last Friday so this is officially our first gist from law school. I'm in Port-Harcourt Campus and for every gist throughout my stay here, I'll be giving you one hot gist about my stay here –about the Campus or the city.

Anyway, welcome to today's gist.

I heard something in church on Sunday that resonated within me so much and I decided that I was going to share with you today. The person preaching said "God knew that there would be giants living in Canaan when the children of Israel would be coming into the land when He made the promise to Abraham that Canaan and it's surroundings would belong to his descendants forever." When I heard those words they, I say this and mean it literally, settled within my soul with the deepest promise of "taken care of" feeling.

Let's put this thing in a little bit of context. So over 400 years after Jacob left Canaan to Egypt, his descendants were coming back under God's instructions and Moses's leadership. When they got close to the land, Moses sent 12 spies, one from each tribe, to scout the land and bring him report on all they found.

The spies came back, bringing goods from the land and telling stories of the bountiful land and all that it entails. However, 10 of them came with reports about the giants in the land and how unequipped they felt the Israelites were to face these giants, in their words "‭‭…and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” (Numbers 13:33, NKJV) Only Joshua and Caleb had a different testimony and believed the Israelites should advance towards their enemies. "Majority carries the vote" no start today because the Israelites decided to believe the 10 spies over the 2 seemingly foolish spies.

But the problem wasn't in the Israelites decision not to follow Joshua and Caleb's advice: NO! It was in their decision to forget who God is, a mistake that I must admit I am also very quick to make.

See one of the attributes of God is that He is omniscient. To be omniscient means to be "possessed of universal or complete knowledge" (Merriam Webster Online Dictionary). This means that there is nothing lacking in God's knowledge, He knows everything there is to know about any and everything. This means that there is nothing, definitely not the future, that God does not know. You know the concept of "Omniscient narrator" in literature? He's that person that narrates the story from the 'finished' point of view, he already knows how the story is going to end, and He takes you on the journey, telling you how each character feels, all the while knowing how the conflict would eventually be resolved –that's God. The giants in Canaan didn't manage to "skip" God's knowledge, He also didn't forget their existence, it was the Israelites who forgot their God's power.

Here's the thing, because God sees everything including the future, when He promised Canaan to Abraham in Genesis 12:6 and 13:14, He was absolutely aware of the kind of people who would be living in Canaan at the time Abraham's descendants would come to possess the land yet He made the promise anyway, He also knew that these giants would be no match for the Israelites but when the time came, the Israelites decided to forget the promise of God. God didn't say He may give or He'll probably give, No. He said "I will give this land to your descendants"(Genesis 12:6), He wasn't contemplating it, He had already decided that, regardless of who was or would be occupying the land, when Israel came for the land, He would give it to them.

I've discovered that I'm sort of like the Israelites, sometimes I'm smacked with some terrible trial or I'm dealing with something and it seems like what I'm going through has escaped God's notice and He doesn't know or can't seem to see what I'm going through because I'd be like "God can't possibly be watching me go through this! He should be doing something about it!" And I forget that God saw this specific trial, saw everything that would be happening when He promised to be with me and never leave me, and when He promised to make me victorious, it didn't skip His notice that this particular trial would come my way. He knew all that would await me in front yet He promised anyway: a song by Casting crowns has the line "to You my future is a memory", He already knows how the story ends, He's just leading you to where He knows it'll all end.

I've found that whenever I am able to remind myself that God sees this particular struggle too, and this one too is not more than His power, I'm first filled with peace. So even before my victory comes, I can rest in the knowledge that I am victorious. The victory isn't just guaranteed, it has been acquired already so I'm not "going to be victorious", I ALREADY AM VICTORIOUS! Why? BECAUSE WHEN GOD GAVE ME VICTORY, HE GAVE ME TOTAL AND ABSOLUTE VICTORY. There's absolutely nothing that can take the victory God has given me because He considered that thing too when He declared me victorious.

I don't know what you're going through, but I'm here to remind, and encourage, you that God knew about that too when He made the promises He made to you. He's very aware of that and He's given you victory over it too. Just never let your problems make you feel like He's forgotten, He hasn't and He will not.

I'll just admit here this is a struggle sometimes but I'm learning to consciously bring it to mind that "this one didn't escape God's notice". I hope you learn to do that too.

NLS HOT GIST: I had swallow for the first time since I came here today. That doesn't look like a serious thing but when you've only been seeing such overpriced and not exactly tasty foods as I've been seeing and you finally found a place that has delicious food at an affordable price (which I must admit means something different in Port-Harcourt than it does in other places), you would remember this and relate. And it was bitterleaf soup too! Walahi God did a thing when He created that vegetable!

Well that's that about that as far as all that is concerned, see you next week.

Love,

Achenyo.