Ah, this is a good thread. So much flying through my mind right now.God told them to go take the land He was giving them. They sent out spies to see if the land was good. It has seemed to me that their problem began there. Of course it was good land! Why would they need to send spies in the first place? It was fear and mistrust.
Two of the men came back very excited about just how good it was. They saw the giants just like the rest of the spies, but they trusted God for victory over them. All the rest of them didn't, so they refused to enter.
This mistrust of God and what He was able to do is what made God swear they would never enter the blessing and rest He wanted to grace them with.
It's so sad. I see the Spirit of the words, of the story. And I'd like to say I have been like those two spies but I really haven't. I strove for so long to get rid of all the giants in the land, refusing to enter His rest, fearful of them. All the giants I kept seeing were...pride, selfishness, unloving thoughts, murderous rage inside the land. I strove and strove to get rid of the giants but I never could. And it breaks my heart to see others struggling in this same manner, exhausting themselves, falling into deep depressions, becoming so discouraged trying to help God bring about the child who is to receive the blessing just as Abraham did. He started out well, and he ended well, but he got a bit hung up in the middle there with his striving to help God bring the child who would receive the blessing.
And even now, I know some cant hear or see the Spirit of the words and will still struggle and strive to keep trying to bring about this child who is to receive the blessing.
And it is all tied up in a fear that sending away the child of our own efforts will be a bad and scary thing. We have come to love the child of our own effort and badly want HIM to be the one who receives the blessing and the inheritance. What man doesn't love his own flesh? And what man would willingly pick up his cross to follow and agree that he had to send away and crucify this child, himSELF, without first striving to find a way to save him?
We have to become convinced that there IS nothing worth saving there before we will give up.
It's all so stupendously huge and too amazing for words and heartbreaking to see others struggling and striving with it, just as I did for so long.
I was so fearful to cease all striving. Had I known the blessing that was to be mine by agreeing to my death, I would have stopped immediately, but fear kept me from entering. It kept me from discovering how light and easy my Lord's yoke is.
It's just heartbreaking to see others kicking around in their own blood, so desperately needing rest, but unable to help them to that rest. We must seem like senseless beasts to Him. Like animals with our feet caught in a trap, struggling and shrieking and striving to free ourselves when if we would just stop it, He could free our legs in an instant.
I maybe didn't take a long enough break from here because I am sobbing again at this heartbreak.