A nagging question lingers in the minds of many Christians: Am I doing enough right things for God to experience His blessings and to have Him get personally involved in my life?
We often feel more like wishful thinkers than confident followers when it comes to receiving the promises found in God’s Word. But by looking back to the people who obeyed God as He blessed them, we can discover one of the greatest truths in the Bible: because we are children of the Most High, we ARE blessed, and the work needed to achieve that blessing is already finished!
It was never God’s idea for Israel to wander in the wilderness for forty years. The distance from Egypt to the border of the Promise Land could have been covered in weeks rather than years.
The Israelites’ own willingness to walk with God determined how far they would enter into the victories He was ready to provide. They were following God, yet they weren’t completely willing to trust Him. Instead of obeying with willing hearts, they often complained instead.
When Moses sent twelve men of Israel to spy out the land of Canaan, they all saw a land of abundance, the rich fruit that the land produced, and the people who lived there. Yet ten of the twelve spies came back with a report of the dangers and the giants. The bad report of these ten men swayed the rest, melting any courage they might have had in their hearts.
Only two of the twelve men, Joshua and Caleb, returned with a bold report of faith, declaring that they were all able to enter the Promised Land and successfully take possession of it. These two men had seen the same challenges in the land that the ten spies had seen, but they didn’t perceive those challenges the same way. Joshua and Caleb saw the obstacles in light of what God had said they were able to do.
In the same way, God expects us to see the benefits He has provided and recognize that any obstacle we may be facing cannot stop us. But to do this, we must develop more confidence in His way of getting things done than in our own efforts to change things.
This is where real trust in God begins. Trust that is aggressive rather than passive will press into God’s blessing and provision rather than waiting for it to come. We’re not waiting for God to do something, anything, to change our current situation. Instead, we’re applying God’s Word to the specific situation we’re facing. We choose to make it truth to us, even in the face of contradicting evidence.
Think of how the land appeared to those twelve men sent to spy it out. Certainly there were problems ahead if the Israelites entered the land to possess it, yet from God’s perspective, the problems Israel would face paled when compared to the supernatural provision He had planned for them.
What kind of report would the spies’ have had if all twelve had mixed faith with what they had heard from God? All of the spies would have said the same thing: that Israel was well able to take the land. We must become convinced that we are well able to possess what God has promised us.
