A study of the life of Moses will show that he didn’t get to live the life he should have. Rather than lead the Israelites out of Egypt and into a land flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 3:8), he led them out of Egypt and into forty years of wandering in the wilderness (Numbers 14:26-35). That happened, mind you, through no fault of his own.

The problem was created when the Israelites’ national lack of faith kept them from conquering Canaan on schedule (Numbers 14:1-38). Moses wasn’t to blame for that whole affair, but he certainly had to spend the rest of his life dealing with the fallout from it. To say that his God-ordained course in life took a hard right turn down an unpleasant road is a major understatement.

Perhaps you, like Moses, have been hurt by the wrong actions of someone else. God had something good in mind for you, but somebody prevented it from happening. Well, I hope you understand that the guilty party was for all intents and purposes serving as an emissary of Satan. Putting it bluntly, that person was doing Satan’s bidding rather than God’s bidding, and Satan always tries to mess up whatever God wants to do.

The Israelites whom Moses led out of Egypt weren’t all lost unbelievers, but all of them except for Joshua and Caleb (Numbers 14:30) fell far short of living out God’s plan for their lives. Consequently, since Moses was their leader, they caused him to fall far short of living out God’s plan for his life. This should show you, Christian, that lost people and saved people alike can hinder the wonderful things that God wants to do in your life.

Now let me offer some good news. Anytime someone’s actions rob the Christian of earthly blessings, God rewards that Christian with eternal blessings to make up for the loss. Since God is a God of justice (Deuteronomy 32:4; Job 34:12; Psalm 146:7), every injustice that He doesn’t make right in this life He must surely make right in the next one. Because of this, at least from an eternal perspective, wrongs done to the man or woman of God become nothing less than a beneficial experience for that person. It’s just that he or she has to wait until the afterlife to enjoy the added blessings.

Take hope in this, Christian, the next time someone robs you of your God-ordained “milk and honey.” Remember that the experience will ultimately provide you with even more “milk and honey.” Even better than that, you’ll get to enjoy that “milk and honey” not in the limited years of this life but in the unlimited years of the next one. I’m sure that Moses would tell you the same thing if you could talk with him right now. He’d tell you that earthly “milk and honey” is nice, but eternal “milk and honey” is far better.