Tent Theology

Have you ever been backpacking?

I have had the opportunity a few times in my life (although I can’t say it’s my favorite thing in the world.)

One of the most interesting parts for me was that you carry your tent with you. Every day you break down camp, carry it with you, and then set it all up again later that day.

Being someone who loves to arrive, it actually frustrated me a little.

The next destination was never meant to be permanent.

But isn’t that what a Biblical life should be like?

This recent season has gotten me thinking a lot about the wilderness and the Exodus. What I’ve come to realize is that the pattern in Scripture is never:

One exodus

One egypt

One wilderness

One promise land

Instead, we see this pattern repeated over and over throughout a person’s life.

Why?

Because God repeatedly calls his people out of established positions into unknown promises.

I have to believe that none of the seasons, as uncomfortable as they can be, are there without purpose. None of them are all good or all bad. Every season exists for growth.

But our culture — and honestly, our human nature — pushes hard against that idea.

Instead of embracing the process, we tend to:

Cling to what’s familiar

Try to control the path

Settle for comfort

In the Hebrew worldview, life wasn’t about arriving at a destination. It was about the journey itself. But somewhere along the way, we lost that perspective.

Instead of seeing the journey as a gift that draws us deeper into trust, dependence, and intimacy with God, we rush toward the illusion of arrival.

We live in a culture shaped by the self-made myth.

We’re told to build, protect, control, and accumulate.

Stability equals maturity.

Movement equals instability.

And that mindset creates people who are unwilling to leave established positions for the unknown promises of God.

It creates people who choose comfort over calling.
Security over surrender.
Status over obedience.

In tent theology, you position yourself to hear God, you obey what He asks, and you trust Him to provide.

You hold loosely to the things of this world.

You stay ready to move.

In Joshua 3:3, the Israelites are told:

“When you see the ark for the covenant of Adonai your God and the cohanim, who are L’vi’im, carrying it, you are to leave your position and follow it.”

The word position there comes from the Hebrew nasa (נָסַע), which literally means to pull up tent pegs and begin a journey.

In other words: when God moved, they moved.

And that meant breaking camp — again and again.

We see this same posture in Abraham’s life.
When God told him in Genesis 12, “Go from your country,” Abraham went.

No blueprint.
No timeline.
Just obedience.

But today, when God invites us into movement, we tend to ask a lot of questions — especially if we’re comfortable where we are.
And often, there are good things in the season. He's asking us to leave.

But just like a tree must be pruned, even healthy branches, in order to grow, sometimes God asks us to release good things so greater growth can happen.

Why?

Because the purpose isn’t comfort.
It’s growth.

That’s why I believe we don’t go through just one Exodus in our lifetime.
We go through many.

We experience Egypt seasons — often marked by bondage, but sometimes familiar and comfortable.
We walk through wilderness seasons — where we’re tested, refined, and taught dependence.
And we enter Promised Land seasons — where there is fruit and fulfillment.

But just like the Israelites, it’s possible to experience Egypt thinking even in the Promised Land.

I’ve seen it happen over and over.

Someone escapes a rigid 9-to-5, enters entrepreneurship, walks through a wilderness season, experiences fruit…

and then becomes enslaved again — this time to the very thing they hoped would bring freedom.

Looking back on my own life, I can see these cycles clearly.

None of them were wasted.

None of them were meaningless.

Every season shaped me.

The question isn’t whether we’ll go through these seasons.
The question is whether we’re willing to live with tent theology — remembering that life with God is a journey, not a destination.

Our culture will tell you:
Find your purpose.
Build the business.
Buy the house.
Arrive.

And while those things may be good if God calls you to them, they can never be the goal.

Following God invites us to make growing spiritually the priority.

And that kind of life might require movement.

God never calls us out of something without calling us into something else.

But rarely does He let us stay permanently settled along the way, because that might just cause stagnation.

So maybe the question isn’t whether God will lead us again.
The question is whether we’re willing to pull up our tent pegs when He does.

Are we holding our lives loosely enough to move…
even if the place we’re in feels good?
even if it feels safe?
even if it feels like we’ve finally arrived?