So you were on this part of your life – where it was calm and peaceful, you were at a good place. Everything might not have come together, but you had an assurance – an inner voice, a knowing, a feeling in your gut – you were on the right track.

Genesis 26:3 Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham.

The happenings on the outside began to confirm that inner knowing. Everything started falling into place. Your business began to prosper, your career started taking off, your relationship was working. You were on a roll. It was an open secret. You were doing well.

Genesis 26:12-14 Isaac planted crops in that land and the same year reaped a hundredfold, because the Lord blessed him. The man became rich, and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy. He had so many flock and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him.

Just when you were planning your next level of success, your next exploit, your next hit…..all hell broke loose. What had become ‘home’ to you was taken away from you. You literally lost the address, the status, the definition by which everyone knew you.

Genesis 26:16 Then Abimelech said to Isaac, “Move away from us; you have become too powerful for us.”

Isaac had it all. He had made it against all odds. He had become very wealthy. He really had no reason to leave Gerar.

And that’s how it works for us, we attain a given level of success – and find contentment in our location; never realizing that we really were not meant to reside in Gerar. It was a place of temporary abode.

Like Isaac, we fall into the trap of the world’s definition of Success. We find contentment in accumulation of wealth, in temporary fulfillment, in the accolades of the crowds – and lose sight of the Purpose for which we were created. Until God divinely orchestrates for us to be moved out of our Place of Comfort – we lose our jobs, our businesses collapse, we get dumped.

Genesis 26:17-18 So Isaac moved away from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there. Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the time of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died, and he gave them the same names his father had given him.

The ‘valley’ seasons of our lives, the place of nothingness, will inadvertently ignite in us a Sense of Purpose. It was while Isaac was in the Valley of Gerar that he began to answer to the unanswered questions of his past. He began to complete the assignment that his father had left unfinished. He began to answer to the generational calling that was yet unfulfilled. He began to realize that there was more to him than farming.

Genesis 26:19-20 Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and discovered a well of fresh water there. But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen and said, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Esek, because they dispute with him. Then they dug another well, but they quarreled over that one also; so he named it Sitnah.

Despite the nobility of Isaac’s pursuit, in spite of his being on the path of Destiny, he encountered obstacles, he found resistance. But Isaac kept digging. He never gave up. Whatever the reason for his drive – maybe out of desperation, out of Commitment to fulfill Purpose, out of the need to Survive. Isaac really had nothing to go back to. There was no turning back.

In our attempt to get back up again, and find our Path of Destiny, we will try our hand at business, try getting back into the job market, anything – to survive. Those attempts may fail, we may find unexpected opposition, we may be treated unfairly, we may bump into opportunities that don’t exactly make sense to us. The one thing we must do is Keep Digging.

Genesis 26:22 He moved on from there and dug another well, and no one quarrelled over it. He named it Rehoboth, saying, “Now the Lord has given us room and we will flourish in the land.”

As we keep digging, we will find a place to rest, to catch our breath, to give us some sense of hope – and give us strength for the journey. You may not be out of the woods yet, the debts are still hanging over your head, but there is temporary relief.

Just like Isaac, we will go through seasons when God seems silent; we do everything we can to have our heads above the water. It feels like we have lost the inner compass that guides us in our journey. But we are grateful to God that we can survive. That we can make ends meet.

Genesis 26:23-24 From there he went up to Beersheba. That night the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bless you and will increase the number of your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham.”

It is interesting to note that in Genesis 21:34, Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there called upon the name of the Lord, the Eternal God.

The Voice of Purpose is heard in His Presence. It’s in hearing when “for a while” has ended and it’s time to move on. But even when we lose track of time, and we get too comfortable, God will draw us out – into desert places – if only to catch our attention so we can clearly hear Him.

Having led Isaac back to the same place, to the place of Purpose – through the moments of silence, through the valley moments, through moments when he must have felt like giving up – God spoke to him, reaffirming His word and Promise to his father, Abraham.

Genesis 21:30-31 Abraham replied, ”Accept these seven lambs from my hand as a witness that I dug this well. So that place was called Beersheba, because the two men swore an oath there.

Genesis 26:32-33 That day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug. They said, “We’ve found water! He called it Shibah and to this day the name of the town is Beersheba.

Isaac finally succeeded in reopening the well at Beersheba – in the same place where his father had raised an altar to God.

We serve a full circle God. A God who protects His Purposes. A God who protects His Word. A God who protects His Promises to His children.

Had Isaac remained in Gerar, he would only have fulfilled one dimension of God’s Providence – Provision – and wouldn’t have discovered the joy of Fulfilling Purpose.

Our greatest testimony is not just in Making Wealth, but also in , but also in Finding our Path of Destiny, Triumphing over Challenges, and coming to the place where those around us will testify about us like Abimelech said to Isaac in Genesis 26:28 Triumphing over Challenges, and coming to the place where those around us will testify about us like Abimelech said to Isaac in Genesis 26:28 “We saw clearly that the Lord was with you….”

As we sojourn through life, may the world testify that indeed our lives are springs of Living Water – overflowing, refreshing, and spreading the Love, Peace and Joy of a Life that has found Purpose – having drawn from His Presence.

Bon Voyage