Day 11 of 21 Days of Courage

Numbers 13:30
"We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it."
 

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I think one of the greatest obstacles to embracing uncertainty and courageously stepping out in trust is our own natural need to be in control. If we place our reliance in God, then we are no longer the captains of our own ships, and for some of us, that is a thought we can’t handle.

I don’t know if there’s a place in Scripture that we see this more clearly than when the Israelites had been delivered from four hundred years of captivity and God brings them to the edge of the Promised Land. This was the life that He so desperately wanted His people to live, but it was going to require them facing a few fears along the way.

So their leader, Moses, sent out twelve spies to check out the land to see what it’s like.

They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.”
Numbers 13:26–29

Isn’t it interesting how they couldn’t help but notice the beauty of the land? They couldn’t help but think, This must be the place for us. But their hopes and dreams quickly fizzled as they got focused on, But...

It’s beautiful, But...there are people already there and they’re huge.

It’s got to be the land for us, But... we could never take those guys on. They’ll crush us.

But in the sea of fear rose a courageous voice. I have no real formulas for success, but what I do know is this - if you try to please everyone, you will fail. There are times in this journey we’re all on that you must have the courage to act against an expert’s advice. That’s what we see in the next verse, “Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, ‘We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.’” (Numbers 13:30).

Even though everyone else had panicked and wanted to turn back, Joshua and one other spy, named Caleb, said they thought it could be done—with God’s help.

Sadly, fear won out that day. We will never know for sure what might have happened had the people not allowed their fear to overwhelm them. That day, the Israelites proved to all of us that it’s possible to be delivered to freedom—but to not actually be free.

-Pete