Numbers 13-16 It’s Ok to Be a Grasshopper

People are very good at being stupid! (I am including myself in this by the way)

Tonight (in numbers 13) the moment finally came!

God had promised to bring the Israelites into their land…he had miraculously delivered them from Egypt. He had lead them…he had fed and watered them from heaven. He had shown them his power over and over again.

Now…he was finally going to fulfill his promise. The reason behind all of this was complete…and Israel was about to truly be free!

Just one problem…there was still a battle to fight.

The Israelites were camped just outside of the Promised Land, and they sent out spies to investigate the people who were living there.

Of the twelve spies

Two came back SO excited because they could tell that God was about to give them something amazing!

TEN came back terrified because the inhabitants of the land looked scary.

Their exact quote was this: “We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

Because of this fear, Israel did not get to see the land for a very long time….these men missed out….

What amazes me about this passage is the fact that, on one hand, these men were not wrong at all. The men of the land were probably huge, and defeating them would be impossible for the Israelite men to do alone.

BUT: the piece that the Israelites forgot is the fact that God is huge. He was never expecting them to fight their own battles. He had taken care of them at every moment until this one, and he was not about to leave them alone. He was planning to help them…but they stopped trusting in his power. They forgot about all of the miracles that he had already done.

I think that it is ok, to call yourself a grasshopper. I think that God is alright with our knowing that we are small and that some tasks are way too hard for us. I believe that this can be healthy truth.

BUT, we should never forget that God is standing with us. He is what makes us big. He is what makes it possible for us to take on huge tasks.

In the end, we have to trust him…and we have to follow him into battles with giants, because he has the power to win!