Walking With Christ

(Part 2 of 3)

Numbers 14:28  Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you:(ESV)

Cain feared that he would die.  God said, “Not so.”

Israel later made a similar prediction.

Standing near the land God had promised them, they looked at the people living there, the fortified cities, and the danger ahead.

Then they said they should’ve died in Egypt.  Or in the wilderness.

They said entering the land would get them killed.  They even said their wives and children would become prey.

God had brought them to the edge of the promise.  Fear convinced them the promise was a death sentence.

Then God said something frightening:  “What you have said in my hearing I will do to you.”

This wasn’t magic.  Their words didn’t possess some supernatural ability to create reality.

Their words revealed what they believed.

They wouldn’t enter because they didn’t trust the God who told them to enter.

So the generation that kept saying it would die in the wilderness eventually did.  But there is another detail we shouldn’t miss.

They said their children would become prey.  God specifically answered that fear too.

Those children would enter the land.

The people Israel feared would lose everything were the very people who would receive what their parents refused to take.

Fear had completely reversed reality.  They thought obedience would kill them.  Disobedience did.

They thought their children would lose the promise.  Their children inherited it.

They thought retreat was the safe choice.  Retreat became the costly one.

That’s what fear can do.  It doesn’t merely make us uncomfortable.

Fear can convince us to refuse things God’s already placed in front of us.

An opportunity.  A calling.  A difficult conversation.  A responsibility.  A step of obedience.

We predict everything that could go wrong, then call retreat wisdom.

Sometimes the thing we feared never would’ve happened.  Sometimes our attempts to avoid it create something worse.

Cain said, “They will kill me.”  God said, “Not so.”

Israel said, “We will die in this wilderness.”  Eventually God said, in effect:  Then the wilderness is where you will remain.

Be careful when fear starts speaking about your future as though it’s already been there.