Giants
“It’s gut check time!”
In high school, my cross-country coach would use this phrase to describe that moment in a race when it stopped being about the training you’d done and the strategy you’d used and started to become about who had the most sheer will power. Because no matter how good of shape you were in, there was always going to be that moment when things got tough. When your mind and body were in full agreement that you should stop. Slow down. Make it stop hurting so much. And at that point, you had a choice: give in or press on. And that was a decision that was pure guts, because everything in your situation and circumstances were screaming to give up.
As followers of Jesus, you’re going to face “gut check” times. Because following Jesus is tough. It can be really tough. So I want to talk about what it looks like to follow Jesus even in the tough times.
And to do that, we’re going to be walking through a story from the book of Numbers.
To give you some context for this story: the Israelites were delivered from Egypt. They traveled to Mt. Sianai where God passed on his law to them. And now, two years after leaving Egypt, they’ve reached this place called Kadesh that’s right on the border of Canaan—this land that God has promised to his people.
God says, this is the land I’m giving to you. They’ve been on this incredible journey of redemption and provision and revelation and they’ve finally made it. They’ve reached it; they’ve made it to the promised land.
The Israelites send out 12 spies, one from each tribe, to go and see what kind of land it is. The spies explore the land for 40 days. Then they come back and share what they saw. Here’s the report they give:
“We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan…We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are…The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size…We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” (Numbers 13)
This land is awesome. It’s everything we were promised. But…
There are giants. There are giants.
As you know, the Israelites tend to respond calmly to unexpected challenges; they don’t overreact; they carefully measure their response—ha ha, just kidding!
That night all the members of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this wilderness! Why is The Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” And they said to each other, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.” (Numbers 14)
The Israelites are freaking out. They’re ready to go back to Egypt. A couple of the spies who went out to explore the land (Caleb and Joshua) try to remind everyone that they can trust God even in this situation, but their voices largely fall on deaf ears.
It’s gut check time for the Israelites. Because they’re faced with a choice. God has given them this land. There’s no doubt about that. But there are giants in the land. And so it becomes this battle between fear and faith. Fear of the giants. Faith in the God who has brought them this far.
That’s our battle as well.
Everyday. Fear or faith.
God wants to bring you to the end of yourself. Because it’s in that place that you’ll learn what it truly means to trust him.
Following Jesus is all about stepping into trust. And the biggest thing he’s asking is that we trust that he is enough. That who he has made us to be is enough. That no matter what we’re facing, or dealing with, or going through, that we can trust that he is faithful and will see us through it.
But that’s hard. There’s a lot of giants.
What giants get between you and trusting that Jesus is enough?
See if any of these sound familiar:
Fear of the uncertain circumstances that surround you
Feeling inadequate
Struggling with the burdens and brokenness of your friends and family.
Depression and loneliness
Struggling with your own sins, your own hurts, your own brokenness
Self-doubt and anxiety
Everyday, it’s a choice between fear and faith.
Everyday, we are faced with our giants and have to decide if we are going to trust God in spite of them.
But what we forget is that the God we serve is bigger than the giants. He’s bigger than the giants.
The Israelites forgot that. If you’re familiar with this story, you know that ultimately, in that moment, the Israelites chose fear over faith. And they spent the next 40 years wandering in the desert before they made it back to the Promised Land.
They were so close! They were right there.
Later on, in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses is reflecting back on his years leading the Israelites, of all those years of following God from when he was first called out by a burning bush to lead his people from slavery, and he recounts this very event. This gut-check moment that the Israelites faced.
And this is how he describes the fear they were feeling:
Where can we go? Our brothers have made our hearts melt in fear. They say, ‘The people are stronger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the sky. We saw so many of our enemies there.
Have you been there? You look around and all you can see is the fear?
But then Moses goes on and he says this is what we should have remembered. In that moment, when our fears were all around us, this is what we should have held onto:
Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the wilderness. There you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.
These words should catch your heart. God is carrying you. Right now, he’s carrying you.
I know it’s hard.
It’s hard because we’re battling our fears, worries, self-doubts, and anxieties.
It’s hard because we live in a broken world, filled with broken people.
It’s hard because we carry our own burdens, our own hurt, our own sin.
Oh man, are there giants.
But here’s what I want you to remember, whatever giants you may be facing in your life right now, whatever giants you may have to face in the future.
Do not be terrified. Do not be afraid. The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you. As he’s done for you in so many times and in so many ways. You’ve seen his faithfulness. You’ve seen how he has carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.
God is with you. He is faithful. He is carrying you. And we can know that; we can trust that, we can hold onto that because he sent Jesus. When we were stuck in our sin, hurting and helpless, God reached out to us. Because he loves us. That’s what you can hold onto. You can hold onto Jesus.
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Written and shared by Kardia.