Sunday, January 31, 2010

THOUGHTS ON CALEB 5

Please Note: If you have not yet read the previous posts of “Thoughts on Caleb,” doing so will help you understand this installment better.


I’m sure you realize by now that when I speak of how Caleb must have felt about something, I’m obviously speculating, because the Bible doesn’t give us this information. However, what he was facing was very real, and since he was a human like you and me, he could very well have felt these things and more. At least I know I do when dealing with similar situations!


Part 5:  It's Alive!


After joining the “Death March” with the rest of Israel, the next challenge Caleb faced (paying the price for his promise) was keeping the vision alive for the next 40+ years! It was absolutely necessary that he do so because, as Prov.29:18 tells us, without vision people dwell carelessly or they are unrestrained or they perish! If he had not held on to the vision, Caleb could easily have fallen prey to the numerous pitfalls and temptations that befell the Israelites during their time in the wilderness. Had he lost the vision, he would have perished along with the others!


But didn’t the fact that God had promised him that he would enter the land guarantee that he would make it? Sadly, no. This is one of those cases where a condition (keeping the vision alive) is attached to the promise, but the condition is not specifically stated. A very clear example of someone failing to meet this condition would be that of King Saul. The promises that God gave when He chose him to rule over Israel were awesome, yet he never saw them all come to pass! Why? Because somewhere along the line he exchanged the vision of serving God in his position as king to that of serving himself, and he perished! If we stop and think about it, we probably all know people who had a clear promise from God but never saw it fulfilled because something killed the vision before it came to pass.


Over the years, I have seen two major assassins that target God-given vision. The first, as we see in the life of Saul, is pride which causes the vision to become about us instead of God. As soon as we start thinking that He chose us because we are something special, we start down a slippery slope from which it is very difficult to recover. God is not about making “superstars” of His servants; His desire is to demonstrate HIS glory THROUGH them! To prevent pride from derailing us, we must make ourselves truly accountable to people we trust who will be willing to tell us when they see it arising. It may hurt, but the wounds of a friend are faithful (Prov.27:6). Dear Lord, guard our hearts so that we do not desire to usurp any of the praise and honor that belong to You, alone!


The second major assassin sent to kill vision is discouragement. Discouragement is always quick to present itself when things don’t go as we want them to. I’m sure it was constantly hanging around Caleb, trying to get him to embrace it. The problem is, once we open the door and let it in, the first thing it does is attack Biblical hope and try to replace it with the counterfeit hope that most people embrace. Counterfeit hope is nothing more than wishful thinking where what we’re really doing is thinking, "It sure would be nice if something happened," but we don’t really expect it to. This kind of hope is really a breeding ground for even more discouragement. Biblical hope, on the other hand, is a confident expectation that the promise will be fulfilled! It has its roots in faith and a trust born out of an intimate relationship with the Lord. Heb.6:19 says that this kind of hope is an anchor for the soul. This kind of hope repels discouragement and helps keep the vision alive!


How do we hold on to Biblical hope and avoid the counterfeit? Through encouragement! I can just imagine Caleb and Joshua sitting around a campfire at the close of one of those days when the people rebelled and even more of their peers died. Caleb says, “Joshua, let’s talk about the Promised Land. I need to see it again in my mind’s eye.” And as they talk, the vision comes alive anew for both of them, and they’re able to “keep on keepin’ on” until the next time they need to talk and encourage each other (please see Eccl.4:9-10). We need to be encouragers and to be encouraged if we want to keep the vision alive!


But what about those times when it seems that there is no one around who can encourage us? Then we must do like David did and encourage ourselves in the Lord our God (1Sam.30:6). How do we do that? Through prayer, praise, and the Word. I know that’s what we feel least like doing when we’re discouraged, but that is when we must overrule our emotions and, by an act of the will, choose to do it. If we keep at it long enough, something will happen in our spirit-man that will affect our thoughts and emotions, and we will find that the Lord has encouraged us; and once again we will find that we can “keep on keepin’ on” with the vision very much alive within us!






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