Exodus
13:26-31; 14:1-4
26 And they went and came to Moses,
and to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the
wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word unto them, and unto all the
congregation, and shewed them the fruit of the land.
27 And they told him, and said, We
came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and
honey; and this is the fruit of it.
28 Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in
the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the
children of Anak there.
29 The Amalekites dwell in the land of
the south: and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the
mountains: and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan.
30 And Caleb stilled the people before
Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to
overcome it.
31 But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up
against the people; for they are stronger than we.
32 And they brought up an evil report
of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The
land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the
inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great
stature.
33 And there we saw the giants, the
sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as
grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.
14 And all the congregation
lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.
2 And all the children of
Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation
said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God
we had died in this wilderness!
3 And wherefore hath
the Lord brought us unto
this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a
prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt?
4 And they said one to
another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.
This
particular passage of scripture represents the report of the 12 spies sent to
Canaan to spy out the land that God promised the children of Israel. (Numbers
13:1-25) When the spies returned they saw that the land was plentiful. I
imagine they were excited to see all that the land of Canaan had to offer, but
they saw other inhabitants of the land ‘giants’, and their ‘but’ ‘doubt’ and
‘fear’ got in the way. …the people are strong, they are giants, the cities are
walled, etc. But Caleb had no doubt that they could go up and possess this
land, after all, God promised them that He would give them that land (Exodus 6:1-8,
Exodus 23:20-31, Exodus 33:1-3, Deuteronomy 8:6-9; 9:1-3 so the ‘giants’ should
not have been a problem. He had it all under His control.
We
all have been in this situation. God had shown us a vision, impressed something
upon our hearts and in our spirit and as soon as we began to go forward to
fulfill the assignment at the first sight of a possible issue, we magnified the
issue more than we magnified God. We began to put our ‘but’ in the way. God
said it, believe it and do it. Don’t you know the devil knows what God wants
you do and it’s his job to create as much opposition or the ‘thought’ of
opposition to make you shrink back.
Let’s
look at verse 30 and 31. Now Caleb, which was one of the people to inherit the Promised
Land along with Caleb followed God wholeheartedly. He was ready to take
possession of the land. He believed God and there were no more questions to be
asked, but here comes fearful Freddie putting his ‘but in the way,’ magnifying
a problem that God had already solved. Because of this, the people began to get
fearful. That’s why we have to watch the news we bring back and sometimes you
just can’t take another ‘reporter’ with you. Because of the ‘bad report,’ it
caused a great uproar in the community and the people wanted to return to
bondage.
Problems,
challenges, and opposition will come, doubt and fear may arise, but don’t
magnify the problem, magnify God. Those problems are ‘tiny ants’ in His eyes.
God is the giant, the problem is merely a tool used to bring you into a closer
relationship with Him. Stop giving your problems ‘giant’ status.
Carla
Mason-Dubose
