Do You Have A Caleb Spirit?
Good Morning Friends,
Earlier this week I wrote about leaving a legacy and along those lines I began to think about my work in Immokalee and the stories in the Bible about Caleb and Joshua. Now after the Exodus from Egypt Caleb and Joshua were sent as spies into the land of Canaan. A key part of helping them to believe in the possibilities of the place was because of an enlightened perspective and different spirit in them that saw a place not as it is but as it can be with God’s help. They had the gift of unfettered joy no matter what the circumstances. They had a gift that make the divine dance so beautiful. And at 85 Caleb still had his divine dancing shoes on. I mean, this guy had more passion for life than he had ever had before. The dance of divine passion might well be the key ingredient that changes everything in our lives. Indeed, what one thinks one can do, one can do and conversely, what one thinks one cannot do, one cannot do! Unfortunately many of the spies from the Hebrew nation focused on the descendants of giants in Canaan. They were as deer in the headlights, frozen by a particular focus and attentive only to a point in time. Our experiences can be like that, we can be stopped in our tracks, but as Christians we are to be blessed with a different spirit that helps us to see beyond the present. Do You Have A Caleb Spirit?
Scripture: And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the Israelites 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. Yet the people who live in the land are strong, and the towns are fortified and very large; and besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites live in the land of the Negeb; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live 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 this people, for they are stronger than we.” So they brought to the Israelites an unfavorable report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land that we have gone through as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people that we saw in it are of great size. There we saw the Nephilim (the Anakites come from the Nephilim); and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”
Numbers 13:26-33 (NRSV)
I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land; and I brought him an honest report. But my companions who went up with me made the heart of the people melt; yet I wholeheartedly followed the Lord my God. And Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever, because you have wholeheartedly followed the Lord my God.’ And now, as you see, the Lord has kept me alive, as he said, these forty-five years since the time that the Lord spoke this word to Moses, while Israel was journeying through the wilderness; and here I am today, eighty-five years old.
Joshua 14:7-10 (NRSV)
Message: Our fears can magnify and vandalize our vision so that we believe for a moment that the shadows are more formidable than they really are. Today we ask ourselves if we have the faith and spirit of Caleb, Joshua, and Jesus. We ask if we can see beyond the shadows. Friends, God has not made us to be losers. Walls? No problem! Giants? A little stone should take care of that! The Roman occupation? God promised a Messiah! When we face a God sized task we need to see through to God’s intentions. Here we discover that He wants to magnify us so we can see with spiritual eyes a way through the struggles of life and into the Promised Land…into the Kingdom to come. When we come to a fork in the road of doubt we must choose either a path of skepticism and unbelief or one of faith that allows us to discover a greater revelation. So it was with Caleb and so with Jesus. Many will doubt but we still must face our giants. We must face our fears. We must bear our crosses, but if we believe that God is on our side, if we believe we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength, then certainly we can overcome a few shadows. So don’t just see through your own eyes. Sure some will surely see walls that are insurmountable and giants that are too big and strong to conquer. Sure some will see birds of prey in the shadows of sparrows. So understand your reactions to people that see only through their own eyes of possibilities. Test your own response to optimism and pessimism. See through God’s eyes and claim the rewards of faithfulness. Rejoice in the journey. Do not be afraid. Be free. Know that legacies are meant to be shared.
Pray with praise that God has given us faith to see beyond the shadows of our fears. Pray that when we seek the truth, the Truth will come to us. Pray we not be timid but have Caleb’s can do spirit. Pray with Jesus’ spirit of power and confidence in the Kingdom to come. Pray we believe that we can truly succeed, because God said we could. Pray that on the road of doubt we choose the path where God’s light shines so we can see the next step. Pray we too have an embodied knowledge that teaches us the dance of God. Pray we keep dancing even in the deserts of life. Pray we realize that the key is to learn how to keep our passion in life even in difficult times.
Blessings,
John Lawson
P.S. Check out the web for Immoklee’s iCo dance team. They might just inspire you to keep dancing.
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