Faith = Trust + Obedience > Fear

When I talk to people about faith I often hear things like:  If there is a God, how come He does not make His presence unmistakably known?   Or if God would just show me a miracle that only He could do, then I would believe. 

The Israelites had God in their presence in the cloud by day/fire by night leading the tabernacle. They also witnessed first hand several miracles: parting of the Red Sea, mana from heaven, even an overwhelming amount of falling quail. And they still had fears, doubts and obedience issues.  They did not consider themselves soldiers ready for battle for land promised to some relative hundreds of years ago (Abram).   They were farmers who had been slaves only a year before.  Their fear was real and overwhelming, and their faith in God as their promised protector sometimes wavered.

By Numbers 10, 613 rules from God had been made clear, the tabernacle had been built, the priests had been ordained, the trumpets had been made and the people of Israel were ready to move from Sinai, where they had been for almost a year after their dramatic exit from Egypt, towards the land promised to Abraham 430 years before.

Following the cloud/fire of the Lord, the Israelites traveled three days of an expected 11 day journey.  As is human tendency, eyes were taken off the Lord and the complaining began.  Perhaps this complaining was masking the real concerns settling in – doubt and fear over what awaited them. Numbers 11:1  Now the people became like those who complain of adversity in the ears of the Lord; and the Lord heard them and His anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some at the outskirts of the camp.  Were those on the outskirts non-Israelites who had made the journey out of Egypt, not exactly pagans, but not convinced of the wisdom of the God of Abraham?  But we should not let the Israelites off the hook since nowhere in the biblical text do we see anticipation or excitement on anyone’s part about being a week away from the land of milk and honey.

Now in the wilderness of Paran, the Israelites complained about the mana, the lack of meat, and life being so much better as slaves in Egypt.  Numbers 11:4-6 Now the rabble who were among them had greedy cravings; and the sons of Israel also wept again and said, “Who will give us meat to eat?  We remember the fish which we used to eat for free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melon, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our appetite is gone.  There is nothing at all to look at except this manna!”

Even faithful stand-outs Miriam and Aaron joined the negative chorus, complaining about brother Moses marrying a Cushite (non-Israelite). Perhaps they did take issue with Moses marrying outside the faith, but they also seemed to have a problem with his prophet elevation over themselves.  Number 12:1 and they said, “Is it a fact that the Lord has spoken only through Moses?  Has He not spoken through us as well?”

Ask anyone in the camp and probably many would say “yes, we are ready for the Promise Land”, but God knew their hearts and He knew this generation was never going to appreciate, let alone succeed, in the land promised to their ancestors.  Battles would need to be fought and total trust in the Lord was imperative.  This group was not the right group for that.  The people were swamped with quail meat and a plague, and Mariam, who spoke out against Moses first, was cursed temporarily with leprosy.

Cue the 12 spies.

God knew where this was all going, and it was time for the people to learn their self chosen fate that their negative attitudes foretold.   Numbers 13:1-3 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Send out men for yourself to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am going to give the sons of Israel; you shall send a man from each of their fathers’ tribes, every one a leader among them.”  So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran at the command of the Lord, all of them men who were heads of the sons of Israel.

The Lord sent them, knowing that 10 out of 12 would support a bad report.  Numbers 13:32-33 So they brought a bad report of the land which they had spied out to the sons of Israel, saying, “The land through which we have gone to spy out is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are people of great stature.  We also saw the Nephilim there and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”  The reconnaissance mission was God’s order, but the recommendation not to proceed was all spy.  God did not tell this undeserving nation to not enter Canaan, this undeserving nation made that decision themselves.

Knowing what we know now, we can "Monday morning quarter" back the Israelites. How could they ignore the presence and miracles of God?  But those wandering in the wilderness did not have widespread written language, the entire Old Testament or the upcoming New Testament to make "trusting and obeying the Lord" decisions.  We have His Word and have seen prophecy fulfilled and promises kept.  And yet we doubt.

From the beginning, trusting and doing what God says have been faith strengtheners.  If He says "Its time to go to the land of Canaan." It's time!  And the enemy walls will come a tumbling down! (Joshua leading the Israelites into Jericho, a lesson to dissect another time).  

I cannot provide one example in my life where I bounced an idea off biblical text, made the decision supported by the text, and later thought it was a bad decision.  On the complete other hand, I can give you countless examples of bad decisions that went against biblical text.  Keep reading the bible, keep studying, keep praying.  It makes trusting and obeying possible.