I’ve been reading Numbers recently and I’ve been thinking over the last day or so about a certain part of Israel’s journey through the wilderness. When the spies come back after scouting out the promised land their report is bad (except Caleb’s). God tells Moses since they lacked faith, the Israelites would wander 40 years in the wilderness until all of that generation had died.
The next part is what I’ve been chewing on. In the later part of chapter 14, the day after God tells the people they would wander 40 year it says, “In the morning, however, they rose up early and went up to the ridge of the hill country, saying, ‘Here we are, we have sinned, but we will go up to the place which the Lord has promised.’” And they were defeated.
So the question is, can I sin and completely screw up what God’s good plan for my life is. Have I screwed anything up this bad?
I’ve been told by Ps. Simon that God has an ultimate plan and if we don’t walk out our plan He’ll use someone else. So maybe it’s about will. When given the opportunity to live out my purpose in life am I afraid? Maybe the point of the story is that generation of Israelites said they weren’t strong enough to take the promise land so God used someone else.
Jesus’ sacrifice covers all our transgressions and sin. However, we still have a choice in how we live after grace. At the point of salvation we all get an opportunity to look to God to see what incredible plan he wants to work in our lives or we can slink away and fall into the cycle of fear and repentance, fear and repentance. The comforting thing is that God’s grace is sufficient in spite of what choice we make.
Maybe a good example of this is fear of commitment between couples. I recently had one person who’s very close to me get dumped because her boyfriend of 4 years wasn’t sure he could commit. She really loved him and would have been a loving wife to him, but his fear stopped him from taking the next step. If he won’t love her, someone else will.
