My biggest household chore is to mow our yard. In this especially hot summer, I haven’t been very faithful to it. I’d make it through the front yard, then take a break. When it was time to tackle the backyard, I’d convince myself, “Ahhh, nobody looks at it. I can skip this week!”
Unfortunately, skipping one week turned into skipping four. Finally, a few weeks ago, I convinced myself to cut the back, too. As I did, the length of the grass caused me to question my previous decisions. I asked myself, Why is it so easy to quit in the middle?
Here’s the conclusion I came to: we often quit in the middle because what’s behind us feels more comfortable than what’s before us. That’s what happened to the Israelites.
In Exodus 3, we first hear of the Promised Land—the land God vowed to give His people. You might know the story. God mapped out a 40-day journey for the Israelites—leaving captivity in Egypt, traveling through the wilderness, and arriving at Canaan, their Promised Land. The problem was that this journey turned from forty days into forty years because the Israelites quit in the middle. Maybe not physically, but emotionally and spiritually, they continually gave up.
There was one who didn’t quit, though. His name was Caleb, and he was one of only two men from the generation promised Canaan to actually enter it. Why? Because he kept the right perspective. Caleb consistently made God bigger than the enemy, truth greater than emotion, and faithfulness his best end-goal. We see this throughout the story.
In Numbers 13, the Israelites reached Canaan but found it occupied. So Moses, their leader, sent Caleb and eleven spies in to scout it out. Every spy but Caleb and his friend Joshua returned with a negative report.
The negative reports were the ones the Israelites focused on. They threw themselves into their emotions, crying all night, and begging to be taken back to Egypt. They consistently magnified their enemy and their emotions more than God and His truth, and this kept them from their promise for forty years. Forty years!
Finally, when Caleb was 85, the Israelites were ready to enter their Promised Land; however, just like the first day, they found it occupied. Thankfully, Caleb’s response stayed the same, too. In essence, he said, “I’m still just as strong as the first time. And I’m still just as ready to fight for this place!” Caleb was just as prepared to fight for his promise at 85 as he was at 45. Why? Because he understood that walking with God didn’t mean there’d be no fight; it meant that God would be faithful in the fight.Friends, the end-goal of our faith should never be ease; it should be confident trust in God. If we’ll keep a perspective like Caleb’s—magnifying God over our enemy, truth over emotion, and God’s faithfulness over the fight, we will walk into God’s promises for us!
