“Caleb interrupted, called for silence before Moses and said, ‘Let’s go up and take the land – now. We can do it.’
But the others said, ‘We can’t attack those people; they’re way stronger than we are.’ They spread scary rumors among the People of Israel. They said, “We scouted out the land from one end to the other – it’s a land that swallows people whole. Everybody we saw was huge. Why, we even saw the Nephilim giants. Alongside them we felt like grasshoppers. And they looked down on us as if we are grasshoppers. “ Numbers 13: 30-33. For the full temper tantrum, read through 14:1-5.
“Joshua, son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, members of the scouting party, ripped their clothes, and addressed the assembled People of Israel. ‘The land we walked through and scouted out is a very good land—very good indeed. If God is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land that flows, as they say, with milk and honey. And he’ll give it to us. Just don’t rebel against God! And don’t be afraid of those people. Why, we’ll have them for lunch! They have no protection and God is on our side. Don’t be afraid of them!”
10-12 But, up in arms now, the entire community was talking of hurling stones at them. Joshua 14:6-12
Leadership is about seeing the power of redemption in the midst of difficult, terrifying, or even seemingly impossible circumstances. This little interaction among the Israelite community demonstrates the challenges of leadership clearly. Joshua and Caleb heard the call of God to go into this Promised Land, saw the beauty of the land, knew the power of their Saving God, and urged the others to pursue the God-written dream.
As we see, though, even when leaders have the faith and hope to move into the impossible calling God gives us, others in community may not agree with them. They may even hate them and start to talk about hurling stones. Listen to what Eugene Peterson says about Numbers 13:
“Faith has to do with marrying the Invisible and the Visible. When we engage in an act of faith as Caleb did, we give up insisting that head knowledge is our primary means of understanding. Faith isn’t a conclusion we come to simply on the basis of what we see. It’s a conclusion we come to on the basis of who God is. And that fusing of the Visible with the Invisible gives us a different way of looking at the world around us. It’s often said that living by faith is a risky way to live. What isn’t so often said is that living by sight has risks, too. Even greater risks. As the story of Joshua and Caleb unfolds in the next chapter, we find that the greater danger wasn’t living by faith but living by unbelief, the way the rest of the nation lived.” Eugene Peterson, Conversations
The fact is, as Christians, we are all called to the kind of leadership as an act of faith that Joshua and Caleb demonstrated. The real question is, are we living by faith in who God is, or by fear that we are not enough?
