Today, it’s hard to imagine life without access to real-time, turn-by-turn navigation on our phones, but it wasn’t always that way. That technology has only been available to the general public since 2000. Before Magellan or Garmin produced the first handheld GPS devices, we used paper maps. At that time an integral part of road trip preparation was a commitment to hours of hovering over an atlas. If you can identify with road tripping in that era, then you know that it frequently didn’t work out as planned. To that point, my brother and I set off from his college dorm in Illinois to visit family in Indiana. It wasn’t until we saw the “Welcome to Kalamazoo” (Michigan) sign that we realized we had missed a turn and were hours off course.
The benefit of modern mapping is that you input the final destination, click “start” and forget about it. Just follow the animated step-by-step directions. When using a paper map, however, it’s important to look beyond your current location to the final destination so that you can be assured of the course you’re currently on. This is true spiritually as well. In fact, the Old Testament used the same analogy.
Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the LORD showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, the Negeb, and the Plain, that is, the Valley of Jericho the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar. And the LORD said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, ‘I will give it to your offspring.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.” (Deut. 34:1–4)
Unfortunately, Moses was not going to be with the people when they came to inhabit the land, but he was taken to the top of Pisgah to see where they were going and to have a sense of what was in store for his people. It was a visual reminder of a future physical destination, and it was emblematic of the larger promise that God made to his forefathers. I imagine Moses was disappointed that he was not able to join them, but the view from Mt. Pisgah was God’s kindness to His servant. He wanted Moses to know that He is a promise keeping God and that Moses’ role was integral to a storyline that was promised in the past and guaranteed in the future. The mountaintop view reoriented Moses’s perspective, giving him assurance that he was right where he was supposed to be along the route of God’s plan.
You also must keep your eye on the final destination. It will be an encouragement to your soul to know that your role is integral to His storyline and that you are right where you are supposed to be. Maintaining a view of the end expands your perspective so that you can know God’s sovereign plan is truly advancing and that you are affecting future generations.
Never get so lost in the details of the day’s responsibilities that you lose track of the greater, eternal goal. Consider Jesus’ Mt. Pisgah view when He showed us how to pray, saying, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” You can take great solace in knowing that you are looking forward to His kingdom coming. You can be assured that His will is being done. The “decisions” made in heaven are, in fact, being worked out on earth. You are right on course.
It’s to this subject that the final stanza of the hymn “Sweet Hour of Prayer” refers.
Sweet hour of prayer! Sweet hour of prayer!
May I thy consolation share,
Till, from Mount Pisgah’s lofty height,
I view my home and take my flight.
This robe of flesh I’ll drop, and rise
To seize the everlasting prize,
And shout, while passing through the air,
“Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer!”