Issue 1482 – Giants – June 25, 2024
The other day, I thought of an incident when I was kindergarten age or a little younger. In a playground near our home, a large sandbox was one of the favorite spots for all the kids in the neighborhood to hang out in.
One Saturday afternoon (okay, I don’t remember the day of the week, but Saturday seems to make sense), I wandered over to play in the park. The big old sandbox had undergone a transition.
It was full of giant-sized kids who had taken cardboard boxes and made a fort in the sand.
None of us smaller kids were allowed anywhere near the sandbox because the giants told us they would beat us up. The fort must have been built out of refrigerator boxes or similar size. It seemed massive and was taller than I was, so in my young mind, it was as impregnable as an actual castle guarded by an army.
In retrospect, these “giants” were probably in the third or fourth grade, but they seemed so big that we were awed and terrified by them. All it would have taken was a brother a little bigger than the kids in the fort or an assertive adult, and we could have claimed our sandbox back. We didn’t think about that and felt depressed.
A similar thing happened to the people of Israel. Moses sent them to scout out the Promised Land.
At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. And they told him, “We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan.”
But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”
Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt. Numbers 13:25-14:4
These were the very same Israelites that God had delivered out of Egypt, parted the Red Sea for, and provided supernaturally for in the desert. They had seen Him be faithful in ways that staggered the imagination time and time again.
Yet at the first sign of an obstacle, they were ready to pack it all in, stone Moses and run away. They showed as much bravery and insight as I did as a preschooler at the sandbox.
The reality is that you and I are probably not so different than the people of Israel. We have seen and read of innumerable times when God has delivered people out of seemingly impossible situations. He has brought solutions that only God could bring to bear, yet when we’re faced with a problem.
Our minds magnify the size of the problem and minimize God’s power. We’re quick to give up, to whine about God having abandoned us, and to think about giving up on our faith.
The same God who parted the Red Sea and worked in the lives of so many biblical characters is still alive and working in the lives of believers today. The way we approach our problems is a matter of perspective. We can let them defeat us without any effort like the Israelites did or we can choose to remember God and His faithfulness and press on.
God is still alive. He’s still powerful, and He can still overcome any obstacle.
Until next time, remember who we serve and press on in His name and under His power.
Hallelu Yah / Praise God
Kevin
Gleanings From The Word
Experience an extraordinary God in ordinary life.
Soli Deo Gloria (For the glory of God alone)
Never let the enemy tell you that you are worthless or insignificant. Your value in God’s eyes is so great that it was worth dying for. You are a blessing to the world. You are so precious to God that his plan for heaven will not be complete without you.
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Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are from the English Standard Version (ESV)