Promised land day 1

 Numbers 13-14

God made a promise to Abraham, and He was working out the fulfilment of that promise. The problem is, He always moves at His own pace! 

God’s promise to Abraham included two things, a people and a place. It had taken awhile, but the first part had come true. Now the people were gathered together, standing literally at the threshold of their place, the Promised Land. 

We might understand if the people had doubted His promise before. They’d spent the last 400 years enslaved to Egypt. But recently, God had gotten a move on and things were progressing at a nice, steady pace. 

He had gotten them out of slavery really quickly. The people would never forget those plagues and that dark night when the Angel of Death passed over their houses. They would never forget the blood of lambs smeared over their doorposts. And, of course, how could they forget what God had done at the Red Sea? It’s not every day that water stands up like walls and mud turns to a hiking trail in the blink of an eye. It’s not every day that you get to see the mightiest army in the world swallowed up by a body of water, helpless before an unseen God. 

Oh, and just in case there was any doubt left, let’s not forget that whole smoking mountaintop with all the lightning and thunder. This YHWH character made outrageous promises, but He had the goods to back them up! You might say that God had demonstrated both His willingness and His ability to see this whole project through to the end. 

Still, slavery tends to breed a sense of inferiority in people. 

When they actually saw the land God had promised them, they were overjoyed! The land itself was incredible, better than they ever imagined. If only there weren’t already people living there. 

God told them it was their land. God told them to go and take it. He had enough firepower to ensure their success. But they backed away. And the reason they give is telling, “We look like grasshoppers in our own eyes” (Num 13.33). 

There are few things in the world more painful than missed opportunities. Here were the Israelites, standing on the verge of finally having their own land, of really becoming the nation God promised them they would be. And they shied away. 

It wasn’t really because of how big the people there were, it was because of how the Israelites saw themselves. 

Over the course of the next 40 years, they would have plenty of time to rethink their position. As they wandered from station to station, walking in the hot sun of the Arabian Desert, eating manna and quail all day every day, they would master two things. First, they mastered the art of complaining (Oy, vey!). Second, they figured out, slowly, how to take their eyes off of themselves and look to the God who had chosen them, inferior as they might feel, to be His people.

Once they did that, they realised He really was big enough to take care of business on His own. 

Dear Lord, may I frequently review the many acts of deliverance You have accomplished in my life. When I remember Your saving acts, I gain a renewed perspective on Your graciousness and involvement in my life. When I forget to do this, I sink back into a temporal perspective and lose the cutting edge of gratitude and trust. I want to recall Your glorious promises and remember Your creative deliverances so that I will grow in trust and not slip into doubt. With this perspective on my problems, I will not back off in disbelief and miss the opportunities You have provided for me. May I look at things through the lens of Scripture so that I will know how to respond to the circumstances and people in my life. 

In Jesus’s name, Amen