Where Do You Want to Live?
There are always conversations going as to where one would live if they had the choice. For example, with the frigid temperatures that the Midwest faces every winter, there are thousands of people who would like to re-locate to the southern part of this nation. But guess what, the times are changing and now the southern states are finding that they are consumed with winter weather and snow – not as an unusual occurrence, but on the regular!
There are also other factors that make people want to move besides the weather, some want to move because of the dangerous crime in the cities of certain states. Some people want to move to other areas because the cost of living is drastically different from where they currently live. Some want to move to be closer to family. The list goes on, but when the deal goes down, where do you really want to live?
I know that the Israelites when they were brought to Egypt on Joseph’s request due to a terrible famine ravishing the area, they were very happy to be living in Goshen. God had sent the favored son Joseph ahead of them to pave the way for their deliverance. Perhaps there is no more loving scripture than found in Genesis 45:4-8:
4 “Please, come closer,” he said to them. So they came closer. And he said again, “I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into slavery in Egypt. 5 But don’t be upset, and don’t be angry with yourselves for selling me to this place. It was God who sent me here ahead of you to preserve your lives. 6 This famine that has ravaged the land for two years will last five more years, and there will be neither plowing nor harvesting.7 God has sent me ahead of you to keep you and your families alive and to preserve many survivors.[a] 8 So it was God who sent me here, not you! And he is the one who made me an adviser[b] to Pharaoh—the manager of his entire palace and the governor of all Egypt.
What a testimony! With all that Joseph experienced, he could see that God was in it, after all!
As we witness different things going on across the country, I have had to retract my desire to live somewhere else. I have resorted back to me confessing a Psalm I learned many years ago:
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. Psalm 91:1-2
God knows, God sees, God cares about us. He knows exactly where we ought to be at every juncture of our life. If he has us in a place of raging storms – He will cover us; if He has us in the murder capital of the world – He will cover us; if He has us in a forlorn rural county – He will cover us.
God said it, I do believe it, that settles it for me, what about you?
Maria