“A DIFFERENT SPIRIT”
“A DIFFERENT SPIRIT”
What a beautiful thing it is to be inspired by someone whose life makes such a constructive, positive and pragmatic difference that eventually may change the course of our own history!
That is what we can learn with Caleb, a young man, contemporary of Joshua and Moses. We can read his story in the Old Testament, but there is one particular verse (with something said by God Himself) that sums up his life and achievements, and that verse is registered in the book of Number 14:24:
“But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it.”
Caleb inspires us in at least three moments in his life, and here they are:
1. He was an optimist, even in the midst of despair
When Caleb received the assignment from Moses to assess/spy the Promised Land of Canaan, along with 11 other leaders of Israel, he was the only one (besides Joshua), to actually see the goodness and positiveness of the wonderful inheritance the Lord was giving them. Even when the other 10 leaders gave a very pessimistic and negative report, Caleb was able to see beyond “the giant obstacles” and chose to trust the Lord Who had brought them up from slavery in Egypt to that point, to the very “land that flows with milk and honey”, through spectacular wonders and miracles that would put Hollywood to shame. Caleb was an irremediable optimist who wouldn't let anybody or anything to stand between God’s promises and human circumstances. While the other 10 leaders compared themselves as grasshoppers facing giants, Caleb and Joshua preferred to gaze at the beautiful inheritance the Lord was giving them, and fix their eyes on remembering the wonderful things they had seen the Lord do for them.
2. He wouldn’t “go with the multitude”
Going with the multitude is to think that the “voice of people is the voice of God”; and actually, in most of the cases, it is not. That always reminds me that the same people who cried “Hosanna to the Son of David'' on Sunday in Jerusalem, were the same ones roaring “Crucify Him” on Friday - of the same week!! Caleb wouldn’t simply do what everyone else was doing just for the sake of “being cool” or not compromising the status quo. His main goal was to obey His God, even if he had to be a solo voice that would clash with the majority; and the fact is that he was right most of the time, because the Word of God records six times that “Caleb had fully followed the Lord.”
Caleb teaches us that to stick with the obedience to the Lord and believe in His promises, will sometimes mean to collide with “what everyone thinks is the better way.”
3. He was always ready to restart
After a very challenging “training” of 4 decades in the desert, someone could think that “grandpa Caleb” was finally ready to retirement in the so dreamed, and now reality - Promised Land, reaping and enjoying the rewards for his faithfulness and obedience, for being one of the only two people of his generation (from a total of 2 million that left Egypt) to be able to see and inherit his portion of Canaan, the very blessed country he had his eyes upon in the distant but not forgotten past. But as we know by now, things were always different with Caleb. When everyone thought he was finishing his course, he showed he was just starting, and Scriptures say in Joshua chapter 14 that Caleb, at the age of 85, had the same strength and determination now as in the beginning of the journey, 40 years ago. What an inspiration, what an example of whole commitment!
It’s noteworthy that Caleb preferred his inheritance in the mountains, and he defeated all his enemies, in order to conquer it. He was a winner, not because life was easy - it had always been the opposite, but for one main reason: he always chose the right side throughout his life, the side of the Lord.
We certainly lack more Calebs today, we need to keep believing in the promises of the Almighty Lord, even when the fabric of everything around us screams differently; we have to identify if the voice of the multitude around us is indeed the voice of God, we must be inspired by those who, simply put, have “a different spirit”.
Wishing peace, health and many blessings to your body and soul,
Pr. Joshua