Finally Moses and the people get to the Promised Land, and Moses sends a few guys into the land to scope it out. They come back with grapes and pomegranates and figs. It really is a land flowing with milk and honey.
But, don't get your hopes up.
We'll never live there.
It's not like the people in that land are going to hand their cities over to us, and they are too powerful for us to defeat them.
And the people begin to whine again. Oh, we are so pitiful.
Caleb, one of the explorers, stops the wailing and says, "No. We can do it! We should go up and take possession of that land right now."
The explorers begin to embellish their stories. "There are giants living in the land. We look like grasshoppers compared to them. What's the point?"
It's easy to judge these people.
We collapse their lives into a few chapters. We're not living in the desert, with the heat and the wind and the smells, trusting God for the essentials of life, like water and food.
It's easy to judge these people, who have forgotten God's power, his provision and his deliverance.
They are on the edge of the land God promised, but they're afraid of the promise. Afraid of powerful forces opposing them.
They just want to go back.
And so I ask myself: What has God promised? When have I camped outside the promised land, afraid of moving forward? When have I wished I could go backward in time to a safer, more predictable life, even if that life meant captivity?
What am I forgetting?
No comments:
Post a Comment