God never fails
A delegation from the tribe of Judah, led by Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, came to Joshua at Gilgal. Caleb said to Joshua, “Remember what the Lord said to Moses, the man of God, about you and me when we were at Kadesh-barnea. I was forty years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh-barnea to explore the land of Canaan. I returned and gave an honest report, but my brothers who went with me frightened the people from entering the Promised Land. For my part, I wholeheartedly followed the Lord my God. So that day Moses solemnly promised me, ‘The land of Canaan on which you were just walking will be your grant of land and that of your descendants forever, because you wholeheartedly followed the Lord my God.’ “Now, as you can see, the Lord has kept me alive and well as he promised for all these forty-five years since Moses made this promise—even while Israel wandered in the wilderness. Today I am eighty-five years old. I am as strong now as I was when Moses sent me on that journey, and I can still travel and fight as well as I could then. So give me the hill country that the Lord promised me. You will remember that as scouts we found the descendants of Anak living there in great, walled towns. But if the Lord is with me, I will drive them out of the land, just as the Lord said.” Joshua 14:6-12
Each day delivers a totally new set of circumstances and experiences. Since living and learning are linked as well as existing and expiring, there should always be a constant desire and probing imagination that will make every day completely fresh and exciting. But as the years go by and we start to get older, there is a tendency to stay in a rut. We tend to rationalize our propensity to make excuses as to why it is difficult for us to change. Then we start to rationalize and say, "I'm just too set,” “That's the way I am,” or “You can't change me." Is God not able to change you? If this is our attitude then we are discounting His power and denying His presence. This is not the attitude of Caleb. From the text, though Caleb was already eighty five years old, he requested Joshua to give him the hill country. Caleb and Joshua were two of the twelve men who had been sent by Moses to explore the land of Canaan, and they were the only ones who maintained that the Israelites, because of the Lord’s help, could successfully invade the land. The other ten men were frightened at the strength of the fortified cities and the size of the inhabitants of the land. Another great testimony of faith came from Caleb, the man who, along with Joshua, had spied it out some forty years earlier and had urged the taking of it at that time. Now eighty-five, Caleb asked Joshua to give him a mountain that had giants and fortified cities! Caleb’s confidence that he would be able to conquer this land was based on God’s promise; “if the Lord is with me, I will drive them out of the land, just as the Lord said.” The reason why Joshua and Caleb are both able to live their lives following God was because they knew that God never fails. This was why they “wholeheartedly followed the Lord, the God of Israel” (Joshua 14:14).
Blessings,
