We are all subject to voices. Some of those voices are positive and encouraging. We love those voices. But if you are a ministry leader, you are well aware of the negative voices that we are subjected to. They can be relentless. This blog post will explore the life of Caleb and his ability to maintain faith in the midst of negativity.
The Chaos of Negative Voices
Many of us own a pair of noise cancelling headphones. What a great modern invention. Noise cancelling headphones have two jobs, one is to fill your ears with whatever it is you want to listen to, and the other is to cancel out any noise that you don’t want to hear. When my daughter was younger, I used them when I was trying to study, while the Taylor Swift dance parties were taking place in my living room. I use them when I mow the lawn to both listen to podcasts and drown out the drone of the mower.
I think we must learn the lesson of noise cancelling headphones if we’re going to truly live a life of faith in the God of the Bible. We need to hear His voice clearly above all others and we need to cancel out all the voices that lie or deceive or come against what He’s intending to do. Many times, in ministry you will find yourself surrounded by negativity. These negative voices sometimes come from other people, sometimes they come from the devil himself, and some of them are internal voices. You and I have an inner dialogue chattering all the time.
These voices can creep in day after day saying, “You stink as a parent. You’ve ruined your life and the life of your kids. Your husband will never change, and you will never love him again like you used to. You’re not good enough to keep leading this ministry. What would your colleagues think if they knew how inconsistent your devotional life was? You would lose that friend forever if you confronted him with what you know. You don’t have time to truly engage in your spiritual life. Having a conversation about God would be a huge turnoff to that person and would make you look like a religious weirdo so don’t do it.”
These negative voices will relentlessly taunt you and keep you paralyzed. How do we cancel out all the negative noise and listen to the voice of God over all others? I want to introduce you to Caleb. The first time we meet Caleb is in Numbers 13-14. We pick up his story in a tent at night glowing by the light of a lantern. Moses is giving some final instructions to a small group of 12 leaders who are about to go on a reconnaissance mission.
Over the previous two years, these leaders had come to trust Moses’ leadership. They remembered how God used Moses to deliver them from Egyptian slavery. They heard him read the 10 Commandments and the other laws which he had received from Yahweh Himself. Now the people finally find themselves camped on the brink of promises fulfilled. Hundreds of years of Jews had dreamed of this day, when Israel would lay claim to what God had long ago pledged to Abraham. The promise of a great nation and a great land. Now, they’re camped beside the Jordan River on the edge of the Promised Land.
Moses had appointed from each of the 12 tribes a leader to enter Canaan covertly and scout it out. The Israelites had agreed together on these 12 choice young men. Among them was one who would be the future leader of the entire nation, a young man named Joshua. There was also another impressive front runner from the tribe of Judah. His name was Caleb. So, they’re gathered around as Moses gives his final marching orders in Numbers 13:18-20. They’re instructed to see what the land is like, what the people are like, what the soil is like, what the vegetation is like.
So they go out and they scout out the land. For forty days they’re gone. When they finally come home the whole nation gathers with anticipation to hear their report. It’s an amazing report. The land is flowing with milk and honey, there are trees and fruit, and the grapes are ripe right now. The people start tasting the fruit and they’re thinking, “We haven’t had anything like this since we left Egypt!” But the more the report goes on the more ominous it becomes. Some of the spies report that the cities are big and they’re very well-fortified. The walls are tall and wide. They have guards posted all across the top. And the people… they’re giants. Remember Goliath? They’re all his relatives. The Moabites called them the “Emim,” which means “the terrors; the horrible ones.”
But Caleb didn’t get the memo that he was supposed to worry about these kind of details, he’s still thinking about the grapes and the promise of God that this is their land and so he pipes up in Num 13:30, Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” The name Caleb literally means “courageous” and even “tenacious” and he’s living up to his name. Notice what the first word of the next verse is… BUT…. 31 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 are.”
Ten out of twelve spies gave this advice to the million or so Israelites: “The land is nice and all, BUT our dream of the Promised Land is an impossible dream! We’re like grasshoppers up against them, like bugs under their boots. It will never happen.”
We all have people like this in our lives. You tell them what God wants you to do and they always have a “but.” When you want to step out and follow God, and they say, BUT you’re too young, BUT you’re too inexperienced, BUT it will cost too much money, BUT it’s never been done that way before, BUT you’ll disappoint your mother if you go through with that, BUT it’s way too risky. BUT, BUT, BUT
Are there any ‘buts’ standing in the way of what God has called you to do and who God has called you to be? How do you handle it when God shows up and you find yourself surrounded by ‘buts?’
Only Joshua and Caleb dared to plead with Israel not to measure what can be done as man would measure it, how large are the obstacles, how much will it cost, how long will it take. “Do not fear the people of the land,” they said. “The Lord is with us!”
When the vote was cast, however, the nays carried the vote. Ultimately God punished Israel, they didn’t obey Him, so this generation would never see the Promised Land. God sentenced everyone over the age of 20 to death in the wilderness within the next 40 years. They would be nomads, wandering around in a barren wasteland that they had already crossed. They would embrace the monotony and futility and difficulty of the life they had chosen, pondering “what might have been” every day. There were two exceptions to this punishment: Caleb and Joshua. We see over in Joshua 14 that they would one day see the land and claim the promise that would elude them for the next 40 years.
The danger of the chaos of negative voices is they can overtake our God-given destiny. How do you maintain a life of faith in the midst of negativity, when all the people around you are saying “no” and you sense God saying “yes?” When they’re saying “stop” but He’s saying “go?” I think we get some clues from Caleb’s next statement to the people in Numbers 14. We’ll explore the lessons from that statement in this series of posts about keeping your faith when you’re surrounded by negativity.
6 Joshua and Caleb, who were among those who had explored the land, tore their clothes 7 and said to the entire Israelite assembly, “The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. 8 If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. 9 Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will devour them. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them.” 10 But the whole assembly talked about stoning them.
