The Lord your God will drive those nations out ahead of you little by little. You will not clear them away all at once, otherwise the wild animals would multiply too quickly for you. Deuteronomy 7:22 (NLT)
Oh, how we love to have things all done at once! We always seek the quick fix way. Whenever there’s a challenge or problem our prayer is always that God get rid of it all at once and right away. But God’s way is little by little!
This is because God’s focus isn’t on the problem or challenge but on our training, growth and ability to live and walk in His purpose for our life.
God delivered Israel from Egypt and brought them into Canaan, a land that flows with milk and honey. But Canaan already had inhabitants living there. There were nations settled in Israel’s promised land who had to be driven out before Israel could possess their inheritance. But God told them He wasn’t going to drive them all out at once because if He did then the wild animals would multiply so fast and be too much for Israel.
What this means is Israel wasn’t ready to possess its inheritance so whatever God was supposed to do in helping them enter into their inheritance had to be in little steps. This is so much like our natural growth process. We grow little by little. From the day we are born we move from one stage to another in small steps. For instance, even weaning us off breastfeeding has to be done gradually making sure we can handle the next diet. Little by little we learn to sit, then crawl, stand, then begin those little, clumsy, first steps until we settle into the sure footedness of adults.
There are things we want God to do for us right now, things we want to have right now, things we want to get into right now, things we want removed right now. But God in His wisdom and love for us knows that we are not yet ready to handle them or even what would happen if we were given everything, we wanted all the time, whenever we wanted it, however we wanted it. Imagine a baby crying for a knife, a toddler insisting on lifting a twenty-kilogram weight, a five year old demanding to drive a car, a teenager who’s convinced he’s ready to have kids!
So, we need to learn the little by little growth principle. Some situations will change little by little. There are even areas in our own lives that need transformation yet it won’t happen overnight because even here God wants to deal with us little by little. Some enemies, opposition, barriers will go away little by little. Certain changes, advancements, progress, in our relationships, ministry, business will happen little by little as God sees fit for our own good. If it happened too fast too soon, we would be swept away in that storm of success!
So, it’s little by little but surely, we get to fully settle in our inheritance which God has already given us in our union with His Beloved Son Jesus Christ.
Let us trust God that whatever we are believing for today, It shall come to pass in His timing.