We have a joke in my house that when we go out of town I become “vacation Kris.” I’m a little bit more free, a little bit less tense, I dress down, I don’t care too much about a schedule and honestly I’m just more fun to be around. It’s almost as if when I’m away from the normal structure of life I suddenly feel like I’m in the right place. “Vacation Kris” isn’t going anywhere right now, but I was thinking about the power of location as I was reading this morning.

In life it is possible to be right in the wrong place. The mirror of this is also true; we can be the wrong person in the right place. And it would seem neither of these is a terminal condition, both can be worked through in pursuit of alignment.

As Moses walks through all he has to say in the book of Deuteronomy he takes on a few different roles: he is a historian, he is a futurist and he is a preacher. Moses is pointing backward to tell the people where they’ve come from and what they’ve come through. He is pointing forward to prepare them for where they’re going and what they will encounter. And he’s doing his best to compel the ones who will walk into Canaan to be a different, reformed generation in comparison to those who left Egypt a few decades prior. 

In verses 10-12 of chapter 12 there is a beautiful statement of hope and promise that is almost watered down by the English translation;

10 For the land that you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated it, like a garden of vegetables. 11 But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, 12 a land that the Lord your God cares for. The eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. – Deuteronomy 11:10-12

There are many things that could be pulled out of these verses, but running through them is a peculiar comparison between Egypt and the Promised Land. This parallel is interestingly drawn by a description of how the farmlands are watered. (And this almost seems trivial from the perspective of a casual reading, but in the language there is an amazing invitation that gives us fresh perspective on the right place/wrong place discussion.)

Egypt is described as a place where seed could be planted and harvested, but to grow the crops a form of manual irrigation was required. In the areas of the Nile River water had to be carried in buckets from the river to the fields. In fact, the Hebrew word in verse 10 translated “irrigated,” literally means “watered with the feet.” 

But as Moses begins to describe the land of promise they are on the verge of walking in, he clarifies that the irrigation system in Canaan is not two buckets and a ride on the “shoe-leather-express,” but instead the rains of heaven wash over and through the hills and valleys of this new land. Moses says, “you don’t have to keep feeding these fields by hand, they know how to drink on their own.”

This is a beautiful image in and of itself. 

The idea that Egypt was like an infant, in need of constant work and attention to be able to grow but the Promised Land is a mature land, capable of receiving nourishment without assistance.  God’s promises direct our lives through places made difficult by immaturity into places which are a blessing because of His sufficiency!

But there’s more to this. 

And the key to seeing this beauty is in understanding the expression we translate, “a land that the Lord your God cares for” (v. 12).

The words “cares for” in English aren’t simply talking about taking care of something (though that is a part of the definition). But it seems the primary use of the word has to do with being present somewhere. These are the words the lexicon uses: “to resort to, seek, to frequent (a place).” So for this to be a land that God cares for really seems to mean it’s a land where God is present.

Now, to see the difference between these two places, Egypt and Canaan, is not to see Egypt as a place where there was no provision and Canaan as a place where provision exists. That’s a cartoonish version of “right people, wrong place.” God did provide in Egypt. God did make it possible to have healthy and thriving crops and field in the place of slavery!

This comparison isn’t about provision, it’s about the difference Presence makes. Not just the Presence of God as One who is everywhere. But the Presence of God in the place where He “seeks to resort to.” The place God seeks to be is the place we ought to seek to be as well. Not because we will starve to death somewhere else, but because the manifest Presence of God in the place He most desires, changes everything. 

The ability for us to “irrigate our Egypts” confuses things sometimes. We get settled in places where we are surviving and then we mistake survival for destiny. We nefariously choose life over what Jesus in John 10:10 calls “life more abundant.” And this is, perhaps, the most subversive of temptations. 

But there is a place – the place of promise – where God is not simply present by default, but He is present by desire. As we seek to cross our own Jordan Rivers (the barriers between faith and fear), we must be clear that God is not calling us to cross over and leave behind old ways, old habits and old myths of self-trust so we can go to a brand new place where we will encounter the same old thing. No. God is calling us to cross over into places where His Presence uniquely creates new opportunities. Where instead of spending so much time carrying buckets of water, we spend more time cultivating better fruit! Because where His Presence frequents, there is more than just provision available to us, there is the promise of His manifest Presence.