Beyond the Promised Land
Sometimes the way life unfolds just doesn’t feel fair.
When everyone around you is getting married and you’re always the bridesmaid, never the bride. When all you have wanted since you were little is to be a mom, and you are having trouble getting pregnant. When you’ve given your best effort, and the promotion goes to someone else. When you are the picture of health, and still receive a cancer diagnosis. When you have prayed for your child his entire life to know the Lord, and he digs his heels in and turns the other way. When you’ve tried to live faithfully and obediently, doing what you believe is right, and life still doesn’t go the way you expected. At some point, we ask the question: I did everything right… why not me?
That question is not new. Moses could have asked it too. Moses was chosen by God to lead His people out of slavery. He stood before Pharaoh with courage he did not naturally possess. He watched the Red Sea part. He interceded again and again for a stubborn, rebellious nation. He endured complaints, opposition, exhaustion, and forty years of wilderness wandering. He carried responsibility that few humans have ever known. And yet, after all of that, Moses is not allowed to enter the Promised Land. In Deuteronomy 34, God takes him up a mountain, shows him the land from a distance, and Moses dies there. From a human perspective, it feels heartbreaking. After everything he did, after all the years of obedience and sacrifice, he does not receive the very thing he spent his life moving toward.
We tend to read Moses’ story through our lens of fairness. But what if our perspective is incomplete? Because Scripture reveals something remarkable that happens later in Matthew 17. Jesus is revealed in radiant glory before Peter, James, and John. His face shines like the sun, His clothes become bright light, and suddenly two figures appear, talking with Him. Elijah is there. And…MOSES! Moses is not forgotten. Moses is alive, standing in glory, speaking with Jesus Himself. The man who never stepped foot into the earthly Promised Land is standing in something infinitely greater — the radiant majesty of Christ. The Promise that seemed lost was replaced by something far greater — His Presence.
We often assume the reward is the thing we are praying for — the marriage, the baby, the healing, the success, the reconciliation. But Scripture consistently shows us something different. God’s greatest gift to His people has never been circumstances. It has always been Himself. Moses’ life was marked by a closeness with God that few people have ever experienced. The Lord spoke with him “face to face, as one speaks to a friend.” God’s presence went with him. God’s glory passed before him. Moses knew God in a deeply personal way. The land wasn’t where the treasure was found. The relationship was.
And the same is true for us. We live much of our lives focused on destinations — the next milestone, the next season, the next prayer request finally answered. If I could just get there, then everything would make sense. But following God isn’t a formula for getting the life we planned. It is an invitation into knowing Him. Sometimes obedience leads to blessings we can clearly see. Sometimes obedience leads us to outcomes we do not understand this side of eternity. Sometimesobedience includes disappointments that feel confusing or even painful. But obedience always leads us closer to Him, and He is always the greater reward.
One day, every believer will experience what Moses experienced on that mountain — standing fully alive in the presence of Jesus, seeing clearly what we only see dimly now. In that moment, every sacrifice, every unanswered prayer, every detour, and every disappointment will fall into perspective. We will realize nothing was wasted. Nothing was meaningless. God was leading us somewhere greater all along.
Because ultimately, the land was never meant to be the end of Moses’ story. And neither is your disappointment.
-Lauren Bredthauer
