a view and a way.

Our drive down to Petra and the Red sea was a beautiful scenic route through the Jordanian desert, and though driving through desert sounds utterly boring, if you have never seen it, it is beautiful. As we were driving I did a lot of window gazing and I kept noticing these piles of stacked stones. The desert is pretty rocky, so one might assume that these were naturally occurring piles of rocks, but after seeing so many of them I knew that these were intentionally stacked and of course, began to wonder why....what did they represent. Here is what they look like.

While at Petra, we hiked up to the "high places" and there they were again...more stacked stones. We sat on the rock that the pile pictured above was on and as I looked down I noticed a cliff covered in them. As I was wondering what this could mean a native man came over to talk with us, so I asked him what it meant. He said, "It means there is a view and a way." It means that not only can you see this place, but there is a way to get there....you don't have to just stand at a distance....you can go. The Lord has really kept this picture in my heart since I was in Jordan, but I had no idea why, no insight into what it was a picture of deeper than that. Then I was reading through Hebrews and it came to me.

"These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from a distance, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city." Hebrews 11:13-16

In Hebrews 11 all of the biblical "greats" are listed; Moses, Abraham, Noah, etc. and it speaks of their great faith and how they showed it. Then it gets to verse 13 and it almost makes me sad when I read the first part; "These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them from a distance." They only had "a view" and the promise of "a way" in the future, but they never saw its fruition. When I was in Jordan I stood where Moses stood, on Mount Nebo, when he saw the realization of all he had been walking towards, the Promised Land, and then God tells him he will not enter it and I wondered what that would feel like. To have been given a promise, to view it from a distance, but not be able to get there.
We do not live then. We live in what Hebrews calls "the last days," the days after Jesus, when the work has been finished, the way has come and all of history has been changed. We do not stand on a mountain and view the promises from a distance. The promise has come and now, not only can we see it, there is "a way" to get there. Jesus is the way. We can live in the fulfillment of the promised rest and redemption through Christ. There is a view and a way for us today...Praise be to God.