The sin of not trusting...ouch

I hope your are reading through your Bible. Somehow, whatever your plan. I just hope you are reading all of it.

Currently I am in Numbers which may sound like a place you would want to quit, but don’t. There are so many rich passages as I take the time to read a certain chunk each day.

I feel a little bit like an old friend who no longer walks with us here on earth, but her voice echoes down to me still. Phil would be gathering bulletins on Sunday morning from the pews after everyone left the service (for you younger folks, “bulletins” were an archaic paper form of the screens we now use every Sunday).

As we tended to sit down front and were always finding people to visit with, we were usually the last to leave and I would go over to say hi to her. Invariably she would lean on the pew in front of her and wave her handful of bulletins in the air as she would expound on something God had taught her that morning or one day during the week.

It always started with, “Hey kid! Let me tell you what God showed me this week….”

So that’s who I feel like this morning. Picture me, wrists leaning on the edge of this old white desk with fingers tapping as fast as they can to keep up with my brain as I share what God showed me this morning.

And for fun…there are several so I may just be adding to this tomorrow as well…

But for now I was reading in Chapter 13 and 14 as part of my time in the word this morning and in these chapters, the spies go into the land of Canaan and bring back two reports.

Both reports have the same details: land is awesome, crops are huge, it truly is a land that literally flows with milk and honey but there are huge enemies there. Big, big guys.

This is where the two reports differ.

One group says it’s impossible to defeat them and the whole entering the Promised Land idea needs to be scrapped. Move on to Plan B ASAP because they have no chance to win the battles.

The other report is that they totally need to advance with Plan A. God is with them. That is all they need.

The Israelites, in mass, go with the first group’s assessment and are ready to pack it up and head back to Egypt.

While the second group continues to try and rally Israel to believe God, the people are gathering stones to kill these optimistic dreamers.

And then God speaks to Moses.

“How long will these people despise me? How long will they not trust in me despite all the signs I have performed among them?”
Numbers 14: 11

I tell you. Those words jumped off the page at me and smarted. Like they made me smarter and they hurt like a slap to the face.

I think of some things that look impossible around me right now.

If I stew about them, I can see all the odds against us and those giants turn me into an ant facing a grasshopper.

So when I read how that hopeless, quitter attitude is a form of despising God, my heart is stricken.

Because I have seen Him work miracles in my life.

I have seen Him do the impossible time and time again.

So hope rises as I kneel in repentance.

If trusting Him is the opposite of despising Him, then I trust Him with all my heart. He is faithful. I know this to be true.

I am thankful for grace when I forget all He can do.

So I pray again, Lord increase my faith. Thank you for being faithful when I am not.

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