Where We Camped, Not Where We Fell

If forgiveness has been given, why do we insist on carrying burdens He’s told us we can leave behind?

“I know what the priests say: God is merciful. I know Moses says we’ve been forgiven. But I wonder if those promises are for people better than me. I was there when we cried out for meat. I was there when we said the manna wasn’t enough. I was one of the ones who doubted, who complained, who made God angry enough to turn us back into this wilderness. I look at my son, running through the camp, and I wonder how I’ll explain to him that it’s because of men like me that he grew up here instead of in the land God promised. I wonder if he’ll understand—or carry my failure like his own burden. Everyone says the cloud still moves, that the fire still burns. But some nights, it feels like it’s moved on without me. Maybe some sins are too heavy even for forgiveness…”

Private Fictional Journal,Year Thirty-Eight, Somewh ere beyond Mount Hor

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We can imagine that feeling, can’t we? Carrying the weight of past mistakes. Dragging them from place to place. The remembrance of missteps, things we wish we could undo. They can start to feel like they are part of who we are, like the real story of our lives. We can eventually convince ourselves that’s the story God sees too, the one He’ll hold against us when the journey ends. 

But is that truly how God sees us? If forgiveness has been given, why do we insist on carrying burdens He’s told us we can leave behind? Maybe because it feels right. Like a kind of self-imposed punishment. Like we ought to pay for the places we failed.

But what if God sees a different story of our lives? A life not focused on our mistakes but on our movement. A quiet chapter tucked away in the Bible hints that He does. It’s found in an unlikely place: Numbers 33.

In the chapters leading up to this one, we learn that Israel fought a major battle against Midian, counted a new generation, appointed Joshua to succeed Moses and made plans for settling the land. Now, standing on the edge of the Promised Land—one of the most significant moments in Israel’s history—God paused the story. As plans unfolded, God paused the narrative for reflection.

At His command, Moses recorded every step of the Israelites’ journey, “their starting places by their stages.” (Numbers 33:2). It’s a curious instruction. Why document every dusty stop instead of the highlights, such as the Red Sea, Sinai, victories, and miracles? Instead, it’s just a simple travel itinerary. Tents pitched and taken down; places briefly inhabited, then left behind. Forty-two encampments across the Israelites’ forty-year journey from Egypt to the Promised Land.

But the real significance isn’t in what’s recorded, it’s in what’s omitted.

There are no detailed accounts of the events at some of these locations, many of which were violent and shameful. There’s no mention of the day 3,000 were killed after worshipping the golden calf, or when Israel abandoned God for an idol. No reference to Korah’s rebellion, when the earth itself opened to swallow those who challenged Moses’ leadership. Nothing about the venomous serpents sent as judgment after their constant complaining against God. No mention of deeply painful episodes like Rephidim, where thirsty Israelites doubted if God was truly among them. Or Taberah, where constant complaints caused fire to break out in judgment. Nothing about Kadesh Barnea, where fear of giants caused Israel to refuse entry into the Promised Land. These are all passed over without comment. The places are named. The failures are not.

In this light, if we step back and look at the chapter as a whole, Numbers 33 is a quiet, unadorned record of movement. If we were writing the list, we’d probably insert asterisks at the worst stops, annotate the sins, and highlight the failures. But God doesn’t. He simply tells us His people kept moving forward, departing one place, and arriving at the next. The point isn’t that mistakes didn’t happen. Each step forward mattered because it meant He was still walking with them.

Yes, God calls us to learn from the past, but not to live there. He invites us forward to trust His guidance and follow where He leads us next. Every departure is a step toward Him. Every encampment is a gift of rest and renewal. There is grace in this steady rhythm. We learn, move, pause, and try again.

Yet, how often do we replay our missteps in painful detail, reliving moments of sin, regret, and failure in our thoughts? We remain mentally camped at spiritual Kadesh’s far longer than we should. But God doesn’t keep us there. He doesn’t want us there. If we’re following Him, He is always moving us forward. The record of our lives, like Israel’s, is a map marked not by perfection, but by perseverance.

When the Destination Is the Point

Numbers 33 isn’t the only place Scripture focuses less on details and more on direction. Abraham’s call in Genesis 12:1 is brief and almost abrupt: “Go from your country… to the land that I will show you.” We don’t know much about the steps in between, what he packed, where he slept, the detours or delays. What mattered was that he obeyed— he went.

The same is true of the wise men in Matthew 2. Their route is never detailed, and we aren’t told how long the journey took or what challenges they faced. We’re only told they arrived, they worshipped and left changed.

Even Paul’s journeys in Acts, though more thoroughly recorded, are marked by intentional gaps. There are dozens of unnamed places, quick mentions of stops, sailing, and setbacks. But what stands out is the forward motion. Paul moved, and the gospel moved with him. The details of every village or hardship weren’t the point. It was the destination, and the faithfulness along the way. “Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal.” (Philippians 3:13-14). Paul’s literal and spiritual journey wasn’t about retelling every past mistake or step. It was about keeping eyes forward. Paul deliberately downplays what’s behind his achievements and failures to focus on what lies ahead.

We sometimes think our spiritual story needs to be tidy—to be meaningful, or full of stops and grand adventures along the way. But the Bible shows us otherwise. Some of the most faithful people in Scripture are remembered with just these words: “By faith, they went.” That was enough. If God doesn’t feel the need to document every detail, we can also learn to stop replaying every wrong turn. Our story is not about the moments we stumbled—but the fact that, by His grace, we didn’t stop walking.

Grace in Motion

Movement matters. Even in the wandering of Israel, they were not lost. God was still leading.

Here’s something that can often be overlooked. While each person in Israel had their individual path of faith and failure, God was shaping them into a people. The wilderness wasn’t just a place of personal testing but a classroom for the whole community. Even those who wouldn’t enter the land still had a role to prepare the next generation to walk more faithfully than they had.

There’s a quiet pattern across Scripture. Journeys are rarely solitary. God forms individuals within the community, and the community through its individuals.

It’s tempting to think of the wilderness years as wasted time, just a long punishment between Egypt and the Promised Land. But that’s not how God tells it. Their refusal at Kadesh (stop thirty-three of forty-two) came well into the journey, and even afterward, God guided them with a clear purpose. Each location listed in Numbers 33 matters because none of their wandering was meaningless. Though many would not enter the Promised Land, their journey still had profound value.

That entire forty-year period, an entire generation’s lifetime, is covered in just the final nine encampments (Numbers 33:36-49). That’s forty years in thirteen verses. Two locations, Zalmonah and Punon, appear nowhere else in Scripture. These were not years of aimless punishment, but of deliberate preparation. The judgment came at Kadesh (Numbers 14:29-34), yet even then, God did not abandon them. He continued to lead and shape them.

That’s the perspective Moses offers in Deuteronomy 8. He reminds the people that their time in the wilderness wasn’t wasted. It was a season of humbling, teaching, and formation. Yes, there had been failure. But the point wasn’t to carry it forever; it was to learn from it. To use it. The past was meant to shape their next steps, not hold them back from taking them.

These were the parents and grandparents who wouldn’t enter themselves. But they still had critical work to do in training, teaching, and showing their children how to follow God, even in the wake of their own mistakes. With the help of leaders like Moses, Joshua, Caleb, and others, they reshaped the community around a future they would not personally inherit.

That is grace in motion, where even our detours become classrooms, where our lost opportunities become someone else’s foundation.

For us today, the lesson is deeply practical. When we feel stalled or sidelined—when our mistakes seem to have rerouted our story, it’s easy to believe we’ve lost our usefulness. But what if the season you’re in right now still has purpose? What if it’s not about trying to regain what you lost but helping others move forward, laying a foundation they can build on?

Forgiving Ourselves

There’s a strange irony in our faith. We readily believe in God’s ability to forgive, but wrestle to extend that same grace to ourselves. We know, intellectually, God removes our sins “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12), but we still choose to keep them close, as though holding on to them might somehow pay the debt. We carry them as punishment in our minds, our memories, and our hesitations to serve. We replay them in quiet moments. We wonder: “Who am I to teach? Who am I to lead? Who am I to be an example when I’ve made such a mess of things?” But if the wilderness generation teaches us anything, it’s that usefulness is not limited by a flawless past. God doesn’t demand perfection before He allows us to influence others. 

We face a similar challenge today. We typically speak of Christ’s return as imminent, but we don’t know the day or the hour. We don’t know where we are on the map of those encampments. So, what do we do? We can stand still spiritually, holding our breath in passive expectation, waiting motionless for that day to come upon us, believing Jesus will return, but using that belief as a reason to disengage. We might bury our talents in a napkin in the ground. Growth is stunted. We wait for someone else to act, or for God to make the next move.

Or we can move—not frantically or fearfully but faithfully. That begins within. Movement means letting God heal us, stopping our endless circling regrets, and trusting Him to reshape us, to fully accept that we’re truly forgiven. Then it also means looking outward, investing in others. Teaching, mentoring, encouraging, and preaching. Preparing the next generation as if they’ll inherit the responsibility we’ve carried. Because if Jesus remains away, they will.

That preparation takes humility. It means setting aside the emotional weight of regrets and focusing on what lies ahead. Our children, our young people, and those newly baptized don’t need examples of perfection. They need examples of persistence. Of repentance. People who’ve made mistakes, acknowledged them, learned from them, and kept moving toward the kingdom. When we forgive ourselves, we free ourselves to lead. To mentor. To encourage. To say, “I’ve been there—but by God’s grace, I’m still walking. So, let’s do this together.”

Keep Walking

That brings us back to our own journey. What would it look like if we were to write our version of Numbers 33? Would it be a list of milestones, or a mess of regrets, reroutes, and restarts? Would it highlight the failures? Or would it, like God’s record, simply show that we kept going?

We all have a version of this journey. Some of the stops we’re proud of. Others we’d rather forget. But the good news is, God isn’t standing at the finish line with a scorecard. He’s gently leading us forward. What matters most is not where we’ve been, but where we’re going.

So, the invitation for all of us today is simple. Let’s stop pitching our tents in memories God has already moved us past. Let’s break camp and leave behind whatever guilt we have that He has already forgiven. Let’s take the next step forward. Let’s keep looking ahead. Because grace isn’t just something God gives once. It’s something we live with every day. It’s the air we breathe on this journey, always present, always sustaining. If we are still walking, still trying, still turning toward Him, that’s the evidence that grace is doing exactly what it was meant to do.

God’s story about us isn’t written in the places we stumbled. It’s written in the places we got up. It’s written where we kept moving. Where we camped, not where we fell. Let’s keep learning. Let’s keep growing. Let’s help one another do the same. The journey continues. We are not walking alone. Let’s go. The Promised Land is just ahead.

Jason Grant,
Barrie Ecclesia, ON