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by Jeremy
Lallier
The towering giants of the Bible may be ancient
history, but God’s people today are required to do battle with a far more
fearsome breed of giant.
The Secret to Facing Your Giants
Eighty-five is not generally a good age to begin
fighting giants. Most people would consider it reckless, foolish and
ill-advised.
Caleb, however, was not most people.
At 85, Caleb was spry and determined and ready
to do the impossible. He had wandered through the wilderness for 40 years,
motivated by a promise from God — and now, at long last, the time had come to
claim it.
But we’re getting ahead of the story.
Forty-five years earlier, the fledgling nation
of Israel had gathered at the border of the Promised Land.
God had freed them from the hand of their
oppressive taskmasters in Egypt through wave after wave of earth-shaking,
perspective-shattering plagues, each designed to showcase the omnipotence of
the unrivaled and limitless God of the universe.
As the Israelites had journeyed toward Canaan,
God proved Himself again and again by performing the impossible — bringing
water out of rocks, bread out of heaven and quail out of the sky.
Enter Caleb. He and 11 other men were selected
to enter the Promised Land as spies, surveying the land and bringing back news
of its inhabitants.
Upon their return, all 12 men
agreed that the land “truly flows with milk and honey” (Numbers 13:27), but they couldn’t agree
on what to do about it.
They had found more than milk
and honey in Canaan — they had found a land filled with strong people,
fortified cities and, worst of all, “the descendants of Anak” (Numbers 13:28).
Refusing the Promised Land
Giants. The descendants of Anak were giants.
Israel fell to pieces. Clearly — clearly — the God who had shattered the might
of Egypt and miraculously sustained them through a barren wilderness had done
so only to kill them all with giants.
Only two of the spies, Caleb and Joshua, made a
case for entering the land.
After quieting the people,
Caleb insisted, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are
well able to overcome it” (Numbers 13:30).
The other 10 spies only added
to the hysteria. “We are not able to go up against the people, for they
are stronger than we,” they said.
When the people of Israel started talking about
turning around and returning as slaves to Egypt, Caleb and Joshua pleaded with
their fellow countrymen.
“Do not rebel against the
LORD, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection
has departed from them, and the LORD is with us. Do not fear them” (Numbers 14:9).
Israel responded by crying out for Joshua and
Caleb to be executed on the spot.
It never happened, of course. There’s a lot more
to the story, but the short version is this: God refused to let Israel enter
Canaan.
As punishment for their faithlessness, Israel
was sentenced to 40 years of wandering.
The current generation would live and die in the
wilderness, with Joshua and Caleb as the only exceptions.
Joshua would go on to lead the
next generation into the Promised Land, while Caleb received a special promise
from God: “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).
And so the Israelites wandered. And wandered.
And wandered.
Days turned into weeks; weeks, into months;
months, into years; and years, into decades.
One by one, the generation that refused the
Promised Land died off, while the next generation came into its own.
Under the leadership of Joshua, no one was able
to stand before the armies of Israel.
Territory by territory, God drove out the wicked
inhabitants of Canaan, and the time soon came to divide up the land.
Claiming the promises
For Caleb, now 85, it was finally time to claim
the promise God had made 45 years earlier.
He told Joshua: “I am
as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me; just as my strength was
then, so now is my strength for war, both for going out and for coming in. Now
therefore, give me this mountain of which the LORD spoke in that day; for you
heard in that day how the Anakim were there, and that the cities were great and
fortified. It may be that the LORD will be with me, and I shall be able to
drive them out as the LORD said” (Joshua 14:11-12).
After almost half a century of waiting, Caleb’s
faith was still strong. When it came time to seize what God had promised him,
Caleb didn’t hesitate for a second.
There were still giants roaming on Caleb’s
mountain, but that didn’t matter. He was a few years from being 90 years old
now, but that didn’t matter, either.
In Caleb’s mind, if God had promised it, that
was enough. The other factors were irrelevant.
He, like Sarah and many of the
Bible’s other heroes, “judged Him faithful who had promised” (Hebrews 11:11).
Just this: There are still giants to fight.
Modern-day giants
Not all giants are made of flesh and blood. They
come in many other forms. Addictions. Flaws. Shortcomings. Temptations. Blind
spots. Trials.
Anything bigger than us, stronger than us,
faster than us — anything more powerful than us, anything we don’t have the
skill to face on our own, anything with the potential to knock us down and beat
us senseless — these are giants, too, often marshaled and commanded by Satan
the devil, the eternal enemy of God’s people (Revelation 12:9-10).
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Giants remind us of how small and helpless we
are. On our own, we can’t beat them. They outclass us in every conceivable way.
The safer bet is to run, to hide, to surrender
before the battle even starts. Why bother trying? It’s easier to give up and
give in before we get hurt, because winning is impossible.
That’s the approach the Israelites took
thousands of years ago, and it’s still the easiest route to take today.
The problem is, when we surrender to a
giant — especially one of the modern-day variety — we give up more than just a
fight.
We give up control over our own lives, handing
the reins over to Satan himself. When we decide beforehand that we can’t win
these battles, we forfeit any hope of growth, of overcoming and of breaking
free.
Choosing not to fight means embracing stagnancy
and accepting defeat as a lifestyle.
Can you afford to live that way? Can anyone?
Israel’s 12 spies all walked the same land, all
saw the same giants, but only two of them saw a battle they could win.
Why?
The strength of faith
The key difference isn’t what these men saw;
it’s how they saw it. The spies looked at the giants and saw wicked men
standing in the way of God’s plan.
The giants in your life are standing in the way
of God’s plan for you, and how you look at them is going to change how you deal
with them.
They’re bigger than you, yes. They’re stronger
than you, absolutely. They could grind you under their feet like dust and not
think twice.
But are they bigger than God? Are they stronger
than God? Could they last even a moment in an arena with the Almighty?
Caleb and Joshua knew the answer. They could
both look back at the miracles God had performed in their lives — in the lives
of all of Israel — and know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that God was able to
give them every victory, no matter how improbable, unlikely or, yes, even
impossible.
That’s why Caleb could tell
his brethren to go up and seize the land, “for we are well able to
overcome it.”
That’s why he could wander for 40 years,
trusting God to make good on His promise. That’s why, at 85 years old, he was
ready and willing to work with God and toss some giants out of his mountain.
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I don’t know what miracles God has performed in
your life.
I don’t know what seas He’s parted for you or
how often He’s rained down bread from heaven to give you exactly what you
needed, exactly when you needed it — but I do know this:
God cares for you (1 Peter 5:7).
He’s not some impartial observer with no vested
interest in the battles you fight. He wants you to win.
He wants you to grow and overcome; and what’s
more, He gives you the equipment and the strength to make it happen (2 Corinthians 10:4-5;
Philippians 4:13).
You are a potential son or daughter of God Most
High (2
Corinthians 6:18), and He wants you to succeed.
You’re going to face giants. You’re going to
have to take a stand against enemies far too powerful for you to handle on your
own, but you’re not alone.
That’s what Caleb understood and Israel
continually failed to grasp.
In your toughest battles, in
the middle of fights where you find yourself out of your depth and over your
head, you can be “confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a
good work in you will complete it” (Philippians 1:6, emphasis added).
You are a good work in progress. That is God’s
plan. That has always been God’s plan; and no opponent, no enemy, no impossible
giant is strong enough to stand in the way.
Every giant is different, and there’s no
one-size-fits-all solution.
But the core, underlying principle never
changes: If God led you to this fight, He can lead you to victory.
If you’re willing to put in the time and the
effort and look to Him for guidance, God will get you where you need to be.
Right now, giants are standing between you and
the future God has in store for you. They’re intimidating, but with God’s help
they’re far from invincible. Can you see them? Do you understand what’s at
stake?
Then what are you waiting for?
Go drive them out.
Jeremy
Lallier is a full-time writer working
at the Life, Hope & Truth offices in McKinney, Texas. He has a degree in
information technology, three years’ experience in the electrical field and
even spent a few months upfitting police vehicles—but his passion has always
been writing (a hobby he has had as long as he can remember). Now he gets to do
it full-time for Life, Hope & Truth and loves it. He particularly enjoys
writing on Christian living themes—especially exploring what it looks like when
God’s Word is applied to day-to-day life. In addition to writing blog posts, he
is also the producer of the Life, Hope & Truth Discover video series and
regularly writes for Discern magazine.
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