(Num 13:33) There we saw the giants . . . and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight . . .
It’s funny how when you’re a kid you’re always looking up at people. You couldn’t wait to grow up and get taller and match up to the size of others. It felt good to be an adult and look at people eye to eye. But then we found out that there were still giants in the land. But this time they weren’t tall people so much as towering circumstances in our lives. Situations that were large and overwhelming. Defiant ogres that struck fear in our hearts and made us want to run. Where do you turn when your state of affairs glare down at you and make you feel as small as a grasshopper?
God told Israel it was time to enter the Promised Land. So, they sent spies from Kadesh Barnea to search out the land and bring back a report. It was truly a land flowing with milk and honey and they even brought back some of the tasty fruit of the land. But then a majority of the spies emphasized the fact that there were giants in the land so tall they felt like grasshoppers in comparison. This bad report frightened the heart of the congregation of Israel who then developed a spirit of unbelief. The Lord became angry with them and He promised that only their sons and daughters would enter the land. The rest would perish in the wilderness. Israel wandered another thirty-eight years until this literally came to pass. (Num 13-14; Heb 3-4)
Contrast this with young David. He was visiting his brothers one day on the battlefield and heard the giant Goliath defy the armies of Israel. This outcry sunk king Saul and his soldiers into a paralyzing panic. But David told king Saul he could take the hulk down. As a shepherd boy he had delivered many a sheep from the lion and the bear. What could this uncircumcised Philistine do? Saul turned David loose on this formidable enemy and he took him down with sling and stone! David then went over to the fallen giant and cut his head off. This rallied the troops who then chased and defeated the whole camp of the Philistines! (1 Sam 17)
What was the difference between David and king Saul? Saul saw Goliath as bigger than himself. David saw God as bigger than Goliath. Listen to what Isaiah says about the vastness of God: (Isa 40:12) Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, Measured heaven with a span And calculated the dust of the earth in a measure? Weighed the mountains in scales And the hills in a balance? (Isa 40:15) Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, and are counted as the small dust on the scales; Look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing. (Isa 40:22) It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, And ITS INHABITANTS ARE LIKE GRASSHOPPERS, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
What about those giants in your life right now? Will you be like the children of Israel and choose unbelief over faith? Will you be like Saul who was petrified with fear over Goliath? Or will you be like David and size up your circumstances to the bigness of God and speak boldly to that menacing monster in your life? (1 Sam 17:45-47) Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you. And this day I will give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. 47 Then all this assembly shall know that the Lord does not save with sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s, and He will give you into our hands.”
Will you believe? (Eph 1:19) and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe . . .
Louie
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