“You can’t get there from here.” It seemed obvious as I saw the missing bridge behind the bold signs proclaiming “ROAD CLOSED.” I had gone past the “DETOUR” signs, as I usually do. Detours always go miles out of the way (or so I believe). Sometimes, the road isn’t “really” closed—meaning I can get through even though I’m not supposed to. But most of the time, I find side roads that I hope will save me miles. It’s been claimed that I drive through farmer’s fields rather than take the detour. Perhaps that’s not far from the truth.

I’ve taken that same attitude into my spiritual life. I know where I want to go. I sometimes even believe I know where God wants me to go. Getting there the fastest way possible is my goal. My shortcuts end up long-cuts. My way leaves me mired in the muck of a farmer’s field. My inability to use hard work and perseverance to achieve godly goals and destinations has led me to ask, “How do I get there from here?”

I’ve found myself drawn to the story of the Exodus. It's the incredible recounting of God taking an entire nation from slavery, setting them free, leading them through the wilderness, and finally taking their descendants to a promised land. The Lord said to Pharaoh, “Set my people free so that they can serve and worship Me!”

And God did it through His means. I’ve pondered that process, hoping to understand how I can go there also. But my spiritual GPS shows I’m back where I started. My destination is the same as the Israelites: that place where I have the freedom to serve Him with abandon, empowered by the provision, promises, and Presence of God. That generation couldn’t make it. Their inability to trust and obey became a washed out bridge in their path. And no detour was available. In a sense, you really still can’t get there from here. The “old” me, the “old” you, can’t go into the Promised Land. The Israelites were slaves, the sons of slaves, and the grandsons of slaves. In spite of all God had done for them, they were unable to respond to Him with faith and hope. God led them into the wilderness because it would either kill their slave mentality or their bodies. They could not go in as slaves, they had to go in as sons. Only two, Caleb and Joshua, of that generation really left the spirit of slavery behind. Listen to how the Lord describes Caleb:

“But My servant Caleb, because he has had a different spirit (emphasis mine) and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land which he entered, and his descendants shall take possession of it….” (Numbers 14:24)

The Exodus shows us how God saves a people, first from slavery and then from themselves. He then takes them to a place where they are free to serve Him. In the Exodus story, this geographic place that God alone was to rule was called the Promised Land. In the New Testament, it is a spiritual place that Jesus calls “the Kingdom.” Now Jesus saves individuals, first from sin and Satan, and then from themselves. He says to the seeker: “...unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God… That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Paul responds: “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” and "I have been crucified with Christ ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me…”.

Until recently, I’d spiritualized this concept, thinking that it was simply stating that the only way to receive eternal life is through God’s gift. That’s true, but there’s another layer of truth. No act of mine can earn me eternal life and no effort of my old nature can accomplish God’s good. I can’t go to heaven unless I die physically, and I can’t cross the boundary into the Kingdom now unless that old nature dies in the wilderness.

In Evangelical Christianity, we often over emphasize events and de-emphasize process. The act of rightly responding to Jesus allows God’s grace to release me from slavery to the consequences of sin, but it doesn’t usually immediately cause me to stop thinking and acting like a slave. There is a process, a wilderness to walk through. We’re commanded to work out our salvation. I’ll paraphrase that. “Over the course of your life, work salvation into every aspect of life, as yeast is kneaded into every part of the dough.”

I’ve depended on God for forgiveness. Now it’s time to trust Him as He leads me from slavery to sonship, from self-rule to Spirit led, from the wilderness to His Kingdom. I can’t get there from here. But He can take me there.