14:1 Representatives from each of the 12 tribes have just arrived from their journey to scope out Canaan and the report of their findings has left the children of Israel dismayed. The problem is that they misunderstood the reason for the travel. God sent members of each tribe to gather information about Canaan. He did not send them how to decide whether or not they could take Canaan. He has already decided that they can.
God did not ask the children of Israel: "Should you jump?" No, instead He said: "You're going to jump. First look at what you are jumping into." Nevertheless, many of the congregation go to bed weeping. It's kind of comical, if you think about it. With God, we are never in danger. It's like buying someone a new flavor of ice cream you know they will love, but when you hold it out to them, they burst into tears. As you stand there completely confused, they weep: "But I've never tried strawberry ice cream!"
Not to be flippant or glib but that is how God perceives our fears. He is so sure that we have nothing to worry about. Not only does he ensure that what he offers us is safe, he promises that we will love it. He's chosen it specifically for us, based on what we like and need. While we're bawling our eyes out, He's just standing there with the cone in His hand.
Does it require a lot of spiritual work and growth to get to the point of trusting God so deeply? Yes. We seem to believe in just about every method except for Him; we usually try His method last. God hopes that we will reach out and accept what He is offering, because as soon as we release our fears and grip onto Him, we experience life in a new way. Life with God is life where our dreams are not only possible, not only probable, but definite.
14:2 The children of Israel do not possess that kind of faith. And how can we blame them, really? After all, here we are, their ancestors, centuries upon centuries later, still living out the same old doubtful, fragile faith.
The children of Israel proceed to have a full-out group tantrum/ panic attack. Their go-to phrase returns: If only we had died in the land of Egypt. If only we had died in the wilderness. Why would we want to have quit before even beginning? The children of Israel do not take into the account the progress they have made: they are no longer slaves! They are no longer bound to the wilderness! God continues to do the impossible for them and yet they are so quick to quit.
The problem is that the progress God does inside of us is often not immediately reflected outside of us. Faith cannot be measured or quantified. God uses our circumstances to challenge and inspire change in us. The imperfection around us contributes to perfecting our inside. Desolation encourages hope. Scarcity encourages generosity. Fear encourages courage. Weakness encourages strength.
We cannot become hopeful if we never have anything to hope for. We cannot be generous if there are never any opportunities to give and be selfless. We cannot be brave when we are unchallenged. We cannot understand the value of strength if we do not know what it is to be weak.
14:3 Do not be like the children of Israel who decide here to crawl back into enslavement. Fear is their master, the one they trust, the one they run to. They choose captivity rather than freedom. God offers a whole new life but they would rather put in effort towards reclaiming the old.
At some point in our fear we have to ask ourselves: Are the cuts and scrapes we are going to sustain learning to ride the bike worthwhile? Are the temporary growth pains going to keep me stationary?
God has given you a life. Claim it. Your life is as alive as you are. It's living, breathing, hoping to expand and adventure but it cannot do anything with you. Without your consent, your effort. Your life can feel its purpose and its potential. Your life does not want to submit to enslavement; it does not want to be spooked or stopped by fear.
Children of God are not slaves to fear. As a child of God, fear is irrational. God did not say to the children of Israel: "You have good reason to be scared, but let's do this anyway." God did not even mention fear! Starting something new and different can feel like walking through a dark room... but with God, we know that the room has been cleared. He's scoped it out and proclaimed it safe. So do not run away crying, not literally, not figuratively. Claim the power He has designated for you.
14:4 The children of Israel decide the select a leader to bring them back to Egypt. God's children do not crawl back to abuse or enslavement! But these untrusting folks decide to. They appoint a leader, a mere man to lead them back into corruption and capture. By appointing a leader, they replace God. Because He is the leader; that is His position.
Consider how irrational this fear is: they want a man to lead them somewhere they know is unsafe instead of allowing God to lead them somewhere He knows is safe. All fear is as irrational as this. If you are walking with God, listening to God, learning from God and growing in Him, all fear is irrational! It has no power over you. He is going to rescue you time and time again; He's going to rescue you often before you even realize that you need rescuing!
14:5 Moses and Aaron are overwhelmed by the reaction of the children of Israel. The group is on the brink of no return, throwing a tantrum, giving into irrational fears and making ridiculous plans.
14:6 Before chaos completely consumes the group, two men step out. Caleb and Joshua, who traveled to Canaan and observed it, give a different report than the rest. Joshua has been a faithful assistant to Moses and Caleb, son of Judah returned with a positive review of the situation.
14:7 Together, frantic to restore the situation, Joshua and Caleb remind the children of Israel of the detail they overlooked: God.
14:8 Joshua and Caleb explain that the land is indeed beautiful and fertile and that if the Lord delights in [them] He will bring [them] into this land and give it to [them]. Oh. That's right. If only someone would interject with this when we ourselves are having a similar kind of freak out. Because if we have lived life the way God has taught us to, He constantly brings us into blessings and hands them to us. He writes our names on them.
God leads us into a new space (often it seems, with a blindfold over our eyes) and when He tugs the blindfold of we behold a beautiful thing. Person. Opportunity. Idea. Ability. We're awestruck. And then we see a sign: RESERVED. Immediately we're disheartened. Oh, this thing was reserved for someone important. Someone who has earned it. Someone who deserves it. Someone who is loved.
And miraculously, with no exasperation at all, God points to the fine print. Under RESERVED, we find our name. We are the important one. The one who has earned it. The one who deserves it. The one who is loved.
14:9 Joshua and Caleb plead with the children of Israel to not be hasty. Do not rebel against God by choosing a new leader, a new direction, by re-assigning your trust. Do not be afraid because everything and everyone who exists around you has been place by God for your benefit.
Those people living in Canaan will serve as some benefit to the children of Israel. If not, God would have cleared the city out. The children of Israel would have found it empty. Abandoned. If you see a hurdle, it is because God wants to teach you to jump. To jump higher. Or further. Or to learn something about height. Or distance. Nothing is random. He's done the math; the calculations are precise. If there is a barrier in your way, He has calculated a way through it, over it, under it or around it.
As humans we get discouraged because we only know the limits of life. We only know this solid truth: we cannot create matter out of nothing. So when we do not see what we need, we think it cannot be made. But God is our maker. He's the maker. He made everything out of nothing. What is impossible for you is easy for Him.
The Lord is with us, do not fear. Caleb and Joshua end with that encouragement. Claim it for yourself.
Joshua and Caleb earnestly, passionately speak to rally the group. To bring them back to faith! To bring them forth into God's blessings... and when they finish their outcry...
14:10 The children of Israel call out for Joshua and Caleb to be stoned.
Consider history. Anyone who has ever had a new or innovative, grand or complex idea has met fierce opposition. Many men and women's lives on earth have been taken by people too afraid to try the new, good thing that was presented to them. Whether by mocking, imprisonment, rejected, expulsion or death, men and women who have challenged the boundaries of what nations and generations deem possible have been threatened.
But God is present. And as Joshua and Caleb just, so perfectly, expressed, when God is in the presence of a child who follows His way, they are in no danger. Even if God had thrown His hands up right there and Joshua and Caleb were killed... Joshua and Caleb and God would have been just fine. In spirit, away from crazy-earth. Nobody can take life or God away from you. Both are proffered to you, by Him, in abundance.
So here, within these pages, the cruel reaction of the children of Israel might seem bizarre... but humans are still the same. Earth has hosted generation after generation of nonsensical human violence:
- Ancient astronomers declared that the Earth was round and were met with rejection.
- Activists pleaded for equality among races and were met with rejection.
- Colonists declared their effort to forge a new, democratic nation and were met with rejection.
Humans do not react sensibly to ideas that are sensible. It is important that we remain here and talk about this because in your life, in your generation and space, you will be called by God to stand up for a justice that someone around you should have but does not. You will be called by God to march into new lands, symbolically, and if you are not prepared to combat your own fear or outsider rejection, you will not persevere. Even if your idea is sensible and logical, it might be met with vehement resistance. But you and God came up with the idea, if it is rooted in justice, you're going to need to push it forward.
Who wants to live in a flat, segregated monarchy anyway? Are the cuts and the scrapes worth riding the bike?
14:11-12 God leans over and whispers to Moses: These people are craaaa-zy. And unreasonable. Let's flip this first, failed pancake into the bin and toss a new one onto the griddle.
Okay, fine. He's more diplomatic about it but essentially it is the same thing. These people continue to resist and reject God and He's ready to give them what they want. He's ready to walk away like their behavior keeps asking Him to do. God is generous, He always allows us to choose our own way.
11:13-14 And yet part of us has to wonder if God is trying to get a better understanding on our capacity for compassion. Moses pleads for these people. He earnestly works to convince God not to write them off, even though it is clear that they deserve it and have asked for it.
Jesus teaches us to lay our lives down for our friends, John 15:13, and that is precisely what Moses does. Jesus teaches us to forgive our brothers, our comrades over and over and over again, Matthew 18:21-22, always taking into empathetic consideration their weaknesses.
(It is always important when mentioned forgiveness to remind that God tells us to move on from people who are cruel to us. Forgiveness does not mean weakness or submission! It means to cease from retaliation and hatred. For our own benefit, as well as theirs. This Mark Twain quote explains why: Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.") Slight digression over.
11:15 Moses understands that for God's word and will to ever be established on the Earth, it needs to constantly be pushed forward. Resistance and all. The power and beauty of God's will is that is continuously perseveres. Continually forgives and realigns its members.
Had Moses expressed cruelty, it is likely that God would have done away with Moses rather than the group. But Moses does not endeavor to save the group for his own benefit, he does it for theirs. And for God's. With that kind of selfless motivation, God's going to remain solidly by Moses' side and they're going to get through all of this dissension.
11:16-17 Moses exemplifies an expressly important ability here: He knows God. He remembers what God has said and promised. Are you familiar with your God? Your Abba? Your divine papa? How well do you know Him? Moses knows Him well. Moses that that when God offers to scrap the whole bunch, He's acting out of character and there's a lesson and reason why.
Moses says, God, I know who you are. But the world does not. Be precisely Who you are, against and amidst all opposition, just as you have said you will do. Because in doing that, in being authentically, boldly you, they're going to learn. They're going to see. You're not a phantom. You're a tangible, visible presence. You are the presence of power. And life.
Abandonment? That's not God. God knows that, but does Moses? Yes. Do you?
11:18 Moses says, God you taught me that you are all of this: long suffering, abundant in mercy, forgiving in iniquity and transgression... and then Moses goes on to directly quote God (Exodus 24:6-7). We do not all have the ability to directly quote scripture. But we do have the ability to be so familiar with it that we recognize when something contradicts it.
Moses' indicators went off at the first mention of something contradictory. God complied these accounts for you to read and learn from because He knew that you could relate to them. He knew that you would read them and think: Well, if they messed up but God remained with them... He will remain with me even when I mess up. You are not disposable to God. But you have to know that in order to claim it.
11:19 Moses' prayer has a place in our world today. For we know disparity and corruption. The world today is familiar with injustice and iniquity. So pray to the God who you have come to know, just as Moses does here and claim every promise of His character: Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of Your mercy, just as You have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now. Because that's how long He has been with us! Since Egypt! Since before Egypt! We do not remember Egypt, we were not enslaved with our ancestors but it is a part of our fabric. Our foundation. And He has been in it, with us, ever since. Forgiving. Relenting. Leading and re-establishing.
11:20 And every time we pray God answers: I have pardoned, according to your word. God says, I have given what you have asked because you knew what to ask for. You listened to Me when I taught you. It is so important that we know His abilities. It is so important that we listen to Him when He teaches us what will heal our hurts. If we are dying of a thirst, we need to know that He provides water and how to ask for it.
Why? Because He is not an inanimate dispenser. He's alive. Our relationship with Him is interactive. He prods us to know what we are talking about and why we are talking about it because He is a God of wisdom. He prods us to know what He has said and promised and Who He is because our faith is our landing pad. Our faith is our tunnel. Faith is the vessel in which our blessings arrive. Faith is the tunnel through which our blessings arrive. Faith is the landing pad on which our blessings arrive. We cannot have faith if we do not know who He is. We cannot have faith if we do not know and trust in His promises and His character. And without faith, there is no mechanism through which blessing can be received.
11:21 Truly, God says, as I live, the whole earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.
Regardless of our behavior, He's triumphs. This place, this space is His and everything and every one is going to know it. This dissension is not even a blip on His radar. He gives us attention because He cares about us. Not because He has to. He doesn't have to put up with the tantrums or the rejection, but He does. He doesn't need our participation to accomplish His will or triumph here. He does not need us... but because He loves us, He's offers us this blessed opportunity to join forces with Him.
11:22-23 Some people decide not to join forces with Him and He respects that. Everyone in the group of the children of Israel who rejects Him and opposes Him is left behind. Just as they requested. God has reaffirmed His promises, reassured them time after time and despite all of that, they choose to depart from Him. God releases them like the symbolic ribbon in the wind... but the flight away is not as glorious as they thought it would be.
11:24 With that business attended to, God looks to Caleb. After deftly dealing with the messes His opposition creates, God looks to His faithful children and presses on. Generation after generation. The matter of your well-being, your journey into blessings is at the forefront of His mind.
God describes Caleb as different in spirit; He acknowledges that Caleb has followed Him fully. Because of that full faith, God promises to bring him and his descendants into a new land to claim as their own.
Allow God to work as deftly in your own life. Let Him clear the chaos and place you on a divine, purposeful, blessed path. The destination? No matter how much it varies from individual to individual, the destination is always, ultimately, Him.
Allow God to work as deftly in your own life. Let Him clear the chaos and place you on a divine, purposeful, blessed path. The destination? No matter how much it varies from individual to individual, the destination is always, ultimately, Him.
11:25 God says: Move out. Are you ready to march in His army?
14:26-29 Those who walked away from God find themselves stagnant in the desert. Do not read this a punishment. This was a choice. Their choice. In life we have this ultimate choice: follow God, follow compassion and justice or remain stagnant in a desolate place.
14:30-36 The men who reject and oppose God doom themselves to dying in the wilderness. Maybe you're thinking: I'm nowhere near a desert, I'm safe! Well, the desert is symbolic. And you're only safe if you are residing in God. If you are not learning, growing and moving progressively forward spiritually, emotionally in wisdom and justice you are in a desert. And you will remain there. No blessings. No growth. No exploration. No inheritance.
Yet God's justice reigns supreme because He only dooms the people who reject Him. Their ancestors are safe and free to make their own choices. The promised land is still offered to them. To us. To you.
Do not remain in the muck of the wilderness. Do not conform to the world's way. To greed and fame and power. You do not have to deal deceitfully to ensure your progression or achievement. You do not have to be the most beautiful or the most powerful to have a good life here. To claim a place here. God has it covered. God has you covered; let Him be your covering.
The way of the world is never more prosperous. Remember Jesus' words in Luke 17:33, choose the way of God because any other path leads to your destruction. Just like God prophesies that the evil in this chapter will be consumed by the wilderness and die, so could we be consumed by our own wilderness. Because it does not matter the generation or the location on earth, there is a wilderness. Chaos. Selfishness. Greed. Lust for power. If we are not vigilant, in small and large moments, it consumes us piece by piece.
14:37-38 Joshua and Caleb remain alive, alive in spirit... alive with faith and compassion on the earth. Do not be spiritually dead. Alive with all of the lights out. Do not be one of the people described in Mark 8:18, a person so blinded by selfish motivation that they miss the bigger picture. They miss the reason and purpose and meaning of life. Go forward with eyes open.
But wait... Joshua and Caleb are encouraging people to move forward to claim something, right? How is it different? Those who remain loyal to God are pursuing a dream more than a destination. They are pursuing a safe haven. A place for family and comrades to live on the land of earth as it was created for: for love and joy and laughter. For babies to grow and children to play. For adults to learn and explore just as children. God loves a heart that has child-like faith: Matthew 18:8.
The children of Israel make their way into Canaan to rid it of evil. We know that Canaan is overrun with corruption because God would never re-purpose a just place. God is our haven, but while we are here on earth, He ensures that we have a home away from home. Through faith, we turn dreams into reality.
14:39-43 The corrupt members of the children of Israel say: Oh, yeah? Well we don't need you anyway!
14:44-45 As it turns out, they did need Him... because they tried to win without God and were attacked. And promptly defeated.
