You Meant Now?

The great thing about God's Word is you find yourself describing it this way, "I love this story," or "this is one of my favorite passages". But the more you read and study His Word the more you find how just about everything in it becomes your favorite.

One of those stories for me comes from the book of Numbers. It's found in the Old Testament and it's a book that my wife would suggest to people not to start in if they were reading the Bible for the first time. Yea, it starts out with a lot of numbers, the 12 tribes of Israel had to take a census of the men at least 20 years of age so they knew what size their military would be made up of in case of battle. But it leads to a story of faith, obedience and timing.

It comes in Numbers 13 where Moses sends out the 12 leaders of each tribe to scout the Promised Land of Caanan. They were to give a report of what they found. "See what kind of land they live in. Is it good or bad? Do their towns have walls, or are they unprotected like open camps? Is the soil fertile or poor? Do your best to bring back samples of the crops you see."19-20.

I love the part there about whether the "land is good" as if God would move them from Egypt thru the desert and across the Red Sea into a Promised Land that was crummy. So as the story goes and 12 men check out the Land for 40 days and find great food, soil and probable great weather, but there was one small problem. There was some inhabitants of the land that looked a little intimidating. So 10 of the 12 scouts told the people "it's to hard, the people are too big, we'll never make it." I can just hear the whining. Because I've done the same thing.

But Joshua and Caleb, without hesitation, said we can take the land. Verse 30- But Caleb tried to quiet the people as they stood before Moses, "Lets go at once to take the land," he said. We can certainly conquer it. Notice how Caleb didn't say, "Let's pray about it. Let's break into groups and have a pow-wow and discuss it. No, he said let's go now. Caleb and Joshua knew the Lord had already given the go-ahead way in Egypt. That's why it was called the Promised Land. No obstacle was going to be too big for them.

Well, obviously, this disobediance did not please the Lord. He was ready to wipe them out again, but Moses interceded on their behalf, again. He spared their lives of an immediate death (except the 10 scouts who doubted, they were dropped dead on the spot), but was originally meant to be an 11 day journey from Mt. Sinai would now take 40 years to reach their destination, one year for each day the scout team was in the Promised Land.

But the funny part (funny in a sad way) comes the next day when the people got up and acted like it was no big deal and it was time to go into the Promised Land. Now they were ready to go. You mean, "we don't get a do-over." 14:40 "Then they got up early the next morning and went to the top of the range of hills. "let's go," they said. We realize that we have sinned, but now we are ready to enter the land the Lord has promised us."

The problem was he promised them the land yesterday. Their disobediance, lack of faith that He would go before them and poor timing (today was a little late) left them with a mighty long excercise period, 40 years worth of extra laps.

God doesn't always give us another opportunity. Is there something in your life the Lord has promised you if only you do your part. If you miss out He might give the opportunity to someone else. There is times for prayer and there is times for action. If you're abiding in Him, He'll be clear to you.

Now don't forget your walking shoes.