Joyful Ruins

Numbers 13

How often do we, as humans spend scouting things out?

I would argue that we are always scouting.

We are constantly moving forward and if we are not moving forward, we are scouting out the present or the past or the future. We are all thinkers, making observations, conclusions, predictions, and judgements. So, even if we cannot relate to the Promise Land or giants, we can certainly relate to some of the thought processes happening in this story.

Something I first noticed was what God told the Israelites to do: “Send some men to explore the Land of Canaan.” That is it. God did not tell them to gather facts, to make judgements, to come to conclusions about the land. In fact, it is Moses who adds onto God’s directions, to “See what the land is like… are (the people) strong or weak, few or many? Is the land…good or bad…?” Already, human nature has taken a directive of God to explore the land He has already promised them, and changed it to an overanalyzing of God’s promises. At least Moses tells them to be courageous.

We are also tempted to fear, to over analyze, to gather observations, find out all the facts before we choose to believe God and His promises. God simply tells us the truth and wants us to explore life with Him, but we are always tempted to look for more evidence.

Moses may have added some directives onto God’s original command, but the scouts take it one step further.

The leaders from each tribe scout the land for 40 days.

When the scouts return to the Israelites and give their report, they start out with their observation and quickly turn to their own conclusions, “However….”

How often have you done the same in your words or thoughts?

It was a good day, however, I didn’t do everything on my to do list.

I want to apply to that amazing job, however, I do not think I am good enough.

I’d like to try that new church. However, what if others’ judge me?

For the Israelites it was, “However, the people living in the land are strong…”

They did not just observe the reality that the people were strong, they used it as a “but” to the goodness of the land.

God provides good things to us. Sometimes those amazing things can come through hard processes, but God never wants us to highlight that hard over His promise of the good. Do not dismiss the good so easily nor judge the situation by the hardness of what you see.

Then Caleb speaks! “Let’s go now and take posession of the land because we can certainly conquer it!”

The voice of confidence, hope, truth, courage, belief, is Caleb. He is a reminder to us negative scouts, of how we are called to see things.

Rather than doubt, Caleb believes they can. Rather than quesitoning and delaying, Caleb calls them to action. Caleb recalls God’s words and he applies all his knowledge of God’s promises to the situation before them.

He saw the same giants as the other scouts, but when he saw them, he remembered his God.

Unfortunately, the other scouts do not heed Caleb’s words.

First, they compare themselves to the people in the land, “they are stronger than we are.”

God never told them to do that. God never tells us to compare or even consider our own power in any situation. We are limited, weak, and lack much of what is needed on our own, but God does not measure our success or courage or strength by our own selves. He is our success, our courage, our strength. What can we not do with God on our side? So, our own capability is not even in question. It does not need to be brought up at all.

And finally the scouts say, “To ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and we must have seemed the same to them.”

Bingo! The way the Israelites saw themselves affected the way they thought the world saw them.

How we think of ourselves will affect the way we see everything else.

I wish I could know what Caleb would say to this, how he thought about himself, but I’d imagine he wasn’t thinking much of himself. He was focused on God and the promise. If thoughts of himself entered in, they were probably covered with God’s power.

There is more of this story to come, but from chapter 13, take these reminders: do not judge your situation, but observe it, embrace the good and do not allow the hard to disrupt that, take action and choose belief like Caleb, and be observant of how you see yourself, beginning to change that conversation covered by God’s strength and truth instead of your own.