Healthy Living
Brought to you by: Community Partner Still Waters Counseling and Education Center, mystillwaters.org
Caleb saw the giants too. When Moses sent twelve men to explore the land God had promised Israel, they returned with the same report. The land was good. The cities were fortified. The people were powerful. Ten of the spies looked at what stood before them and concluded, “We can’t attack the people because they are stronger than we are” (Numbers 13:31). Caleb saw the same obstacles but reached a different conclusion: “Let’s go up now and take possession of the land because we can certainly conquer it!” (Numbers 13:30). The difference was not what Caleb saw. The difference was how he understood what he saw. God later said of Caleb, “But since my servant Caleb has a different spirit and has followed me completely, I will bring him into the land” (Numbers 14:24).
Maybe you are facing something much bigger than you: an unexpected loss, a relationship you do not know how to repair, a frightening diagnosis, or a season of uncertainty with no clear ending. Sometimes the giants in front of us are very real. Faith does not require us to pretend otherwise. Caleb did not deny the fortified cities or powerful enemies. He refused to let what he could see become more authoritative than what God had said. He saw the obstacles, but also a greater reality: God was with them, and God could be trusted.
Strong faith does not mean we will never feel afraid. David wrote, “When I am afraid, I will trust in you” (Psalm 56:3). Not if I am afraid. When.
Fear and faith can meet in the same moment. The question is which one we will allow to shape how we see what is before us. For those who have placed their faith in Christ, we do not face those moments alone. God has given us His Spirit, who produces in us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. As we remain rooted in God’s Word and learn to walk by His Spirit, we can increasingly respond to difficulties from what we know about God rather than simply from what we feel.
The giants may be real. The diagnosis may be real. The grief may be real. The uncertainty may be real. But God is real too. And God is bigger. Caleb’s story reminds us that courage is not pretending there is nothing to fear. Sometimes courage is looking honestly at what stands before us and learning to understand it differently, not because the circumstances have changed, but because we remember who God is in the midst of them. The giants don’t always disappear. But with God, they don’t have to define how we understand what we see or determine how we move forward.
–Beverly Ward, EdS, MA, LPC
Still Waters Counseling and Education Center
