When Moses sent out spies to reconnoiter the Promised Land (see the Book of Numbers), they came back to him with grim reports.
“We’re finished! Game over, man! Those cities are giants’ cities, and the people living there are giants! We’re like grasshoppers, compared to them. They’ll crush us! Oh, why couldn’t we have stayed in Egypt? Why has the Lord done this to us?” And so on and so on. It was a total loss of heart, a total failure of trust; and God decided not to let that generation enter the Promised Land.
Only Caleb and Joshua were spared; for among the dozen spies, they alone trusted God and urged Israel to take his inheritance.
God does not like despair to take root among His people. He doesn’t like it when they don’t trust Him. It is as if they are saying to Him, “You can’t do what you said you’d do!” It’s insulting.
I hear more and more of it, these days. Especially since the “Election” of 2020. A lot of “We’re screwed, the bad guys win, no way out, things’ll never be good again!” Yes, I hear a lot of that.
My editor thinks I’m a pessimist. Sheesh! I’m Mary Sunshine, compared to some. Yes, things are bad! Yes, we are very badly up against it!
But at the same time, our God is an awesome God, who made the heavens and the earth: the judge of all the earth, who will always do right. Through much tribulation we enter His Kingdom, Paul warned us. And so did Jesus Christ Himself: in the world, He told us, we will have tribulation.
But our tribulating doesn’t go on forever, it doesn’t go on without God’s notice–and compared to certain other times in history, we have very little to cry about. We have not faced Nero.
May God forgive us for losing heart, for giving in to defeat; may He strengthen us, breathe spirit into us, fight for us, defend us, avenge us, and conquer for us.
We can at least stop talking as if we were already swallowed up by the ungodly.
Hebrews Chapter 11–read it more often! We all need it.