Caleb
I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. (Joshua 14:11, ESV)
Last evening I was speaking to an old friend who is in his ninetieth year. He lives alone, and I rang him as I wanted to know how he was getting on in lockdown, and to encourage him. I came off the telephone feeling so encouraged myself by a brother who was still so bright in his faith, positive in his outlook and with such a thankful spirit. He reminded me so much of Caleb.
Caleb must have felt so excited to be chosen as one of the twelve men sent by Moses to survey the land God had promised His people. The men travelled from the Negev to Hebron. When they returned, they said the land did indeed flow with milk and honey! And they showed the people the grapes of Eshcol, and the pomegranates and figs they had brought back. But then they said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are” (Numbers 13:31, ESV). How depressing to be shown what God had long promised, and then to be told you can’t have it. Caleb had said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it” (Numbers 13:30). If ever there was a man of faith, it was Caleb. He believed God had led His people to the edge of the Promised Land; he had walked through it and seen it was precisely as God described, and he was ready to possess it straight away. God says of Caleb, “My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it” (Numbers 14:24). On three further occasions, Caleb is spoken of as following the Lord wholeheartedly (Numbers 32:12, Deuteronomy 1:36, Joshua 14:14).
Caleb was ready to fight giants to possess and enjoy what God had promised. It was Harold St. John who started an address on Ephesians with the words, “I am the owner of many umbrellas, but the possessor of few!” He was using this as a reminder of how we need to take hold of and possess what God has given us. The Children of Israel made the wilderness their home. Caleb’s generation died there, having never seen the land God wanted them to have. What is so striking about Caleb is the faith, love and hope he already possessed. His faith never let his disappointment create frustration and bitterness in his heart. So often, when we are disappointed, we are robbed of joy and can become resentful. Instead, in love, Caleb suffered with the people of God as they wandered through the wilderness that was never his home. And all the time, hope shone brightly in his heart with the certainty that he would possess Hebron. Read his joyous story in Joshua 14 and how as an eighty-five-year-old man he said, “I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day” (verses 11-12, ESV). These were not idle words. He met and defeated giants and possessed Hebron as his inheritance.
We face the giants of fear, doubt and weakness that can make us retreat to the safety of the wilderness and miss out on the spiritual blessings God wants us to enjoy and be empowered by. He gives examples like Caleb and saints like my dear old friend to encourage us to have a bright faith, to love in all circumstances and to be transformed by the hope we have in Christ.
