Numbers 14:9 And do not be afraid of the people of the
land, because we will devour them. Their
protection is gone, but the Lord is with us.
Do not be afraid of them.
Joshua and Caleb saw the very same things the other ten
spies saw when they went into the land
of Canaan, but they had a totally
different vision. They all saw the
strength of the inhabitants but Joshua and Caleb’s vision saw the possibility
of victory over them. They saw the presence of God that the others missed. They had no way of knowing (no more than the
other ten did) how the inhabitants would be defeated but their confidence in
God’s power gave them an entirely different outlook on the situation. This event in Numbers reminded of something I
have been thinking about lately. There
is quite a contrast between the optimism of a man or woman who puts their faith
and trust in the Almighty God, their Heavenly Father, and the pessimism of the
one who worries and frets over things because they either won’t or don’t know
how to trust God in all things. For me, although
I am normally fairly optimistic, I have had to practice trusting God in order
to learn to do it automatically. As I
watched my mother grow weak physically and mentally before her death, I could
see how that practice paid off in the end of her life. Even when she could not consciously make the
decision to trust God, she kept on doing so in spite of her fears because she
had made it a habit for so many years. I
want to be like that when I “grow up.” I want to have automatic faith-based optimism.
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