We Are Able, As He Is Able

Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.”

But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” (Num 13:30-33)

Ten people said, "No, we can't," but Caleb said, "Yes, we can!" So, how is it that of the twelve who saw the same things in the promised land, ten would say no and two would say yes? Was it a careful estimation of what forces were available to Israel and what stood against them in Canaan? Perhaps for the ten that was it, but God had already overcome a great many things in their sight, including the mobile infantry of a certain pharaoh, and a watery barrier called the Red Sea. So, it seems that the ten did not believe that God would continue to pave the way for them, like maybe they thought of God as unfaithful.

On the faithful side, Caleb stood forth and said, "We are well able..." Indeed, there is no doubt in my mind that Caleb included God in his 'we', because how else would he and Joshua arrive at a different answer from the other ten? All twelve men had seen God's work, all could count the fighting men of Israel, and all twelve had spied out the promised land. How could the answers be so different without faith being in the minority?

Whatever you and I face on this day, it is time for us to look to God and say, "We are well able!"

Bucky

No humor in the Bible, huh: So, if the land devours its inhabitants, how did they all get to be men of great stature?