Numbers 13-14....this is it, Here we go.
The moment everything changes. That one big decision I bet the Children of Israel wished they could take back for the rest of their lives while continuing to wander through the wilderness.
God tells Moses to send 12 men to get information on the land. We all know the story. Ten come back and cause fear through the camp while nobody listens to the two that say, "Let's go. God is with us." But what really gets me about this story is that God never asked them to decide if they were going in. He already said the land was theirs. He just asked them to look at it. And when they got there everything God said was true. The land was incredible. So fruitful that it took two men to carry a single cluster of grapes.
But the problem wasn't the land. The problem was the giants. And suddenly the conversation shifted from what God said to what they saw. Ten men walked back into that camp and let fear run wild.
"They're too big."
"We can't do it."
"We looked like grasshoppers."
The entire nation listened to the wrong voices.
Two men stood there, Joshua and Caleb, saying, "God is with us. We can take the land."
But fear spreads faster than faith.
And in one moment...
one decision. .
one agreement with fear....
They traded the promise for wandering in a wilderness for 40 years. Instead of stepping into the land God had prepared for them they walked in circles for 40 years.
Forty years thinking about what could have been. Forty years watching a whole generation die in the wilderness. All because they believed the wrong report.
These chapters wreck me a little. Because I see myself. Not in Joshua or Caleb like I'd love to pretend. But in that crowd. The ones who know what God said but start looking at the giants. The ones who have seen miracles but still let fear start whispering. The ones who start wondering, What if I can't do this, What if it's too big, What if I fail...
Sometimes the giants are real. Sometimes the obstacles are huge. But so is God. And I think that's the moment Israel missed it.
They forgot everything God had already done.
The Red Sea.
The manna.
The cloud leading them every single day.
They stood on the edge of the promise and somehow convinced themselves that the God who brought them there wouldn't get them through it. And I don't want to live like that.
I don't want to spend my life wandering around something God already told me to walk into. I don't want to look back years from now and realize fear talked me out of mt obedience.
So when I read this story now, I don't just see Israel standing at the edge of Canaan.
I see every moment in my life where God says,
Trust Me. Let's go." And the question is the same every time... Am I going to listen to the voices that magnify the giants, or the voice that reminds me, "The Lord is with us."
The promised land still had giants. But the wilderness had graves. I refuse to spend my life wandering in circles because I was too afraid to step where God was leading.
Love Pastor Mandy
Ark of Hope Ministry
Daily reading Numbers 13-14
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