Walking through the Darkness

Impossible?

by Pat Nordman

"Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it."

Numbers 13:30 KJV

"If God is for us, who can be against us?"

Romans 8:31

The brooders are the losers. In this passage of faith in the book of Numbers – and fright of numbers – Caleb dares to go against the majority and declare that the land is theirs if they act right away. He wasn't about to give in to the pessimists who saw only the giants. God had already promised them the land anyway: "The Lord said to Moses, `Send some men to ex-plore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Is-raelites.'" The others walked by sight, Caleb by faith.

The land that "does flow with milk and honey!" (V.27) suddenly, through fear, became a land that "devours those living in it." (V.32). "We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them" (Numbers 13:33). The more they thought about it, the more they perceived themselves to be grasshoppers. They saw the same land as did Joshua and Caleb, but they didn't see the opportuni-ties. Their grasshopper mentality stopped them short of possession. But God promised, and "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" (Genesis 18:14).

When God tells us plainly what our duty is through circumstances and people, then we are foolish to dwell on what we perceive to be difficulties. He has promised to cover all our problems. Through prayer and faith, we can translate our grasshopper mentality into the mind of Christ with all the potentials that are ours. God wants us to see life in His light of possibilities. After all, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?" (Hebrews 13:6). Our impossible becomes Himpossible!

When God tells us plainly what our duty is through circumstances and people, then we are foolish to dwell on what we perceive to be difficulties.