“We can’t attack those people! They’re too strong for us! … The land we explored is one that devours those who live there. All the people we saw there are very tall. … We felt as small as grasshoppers, and that’s how we must have looked to them.” [Numbers 13:31-33 (GW)]
I vividly remember one audition at summer theater camp. It was for the part of Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. Before trying out, I decided to size up my opposition—the other girls vying for the role. I sat there in the darkened theatre and started comparing myself with every girl who auditioned. Although one girl’s audition was outstanding, I still thought I had a good chance for Juliet until I heard people whispering about her. Apparently, she’d been the understudy for the role of Helen Keller in the Broadway production of The Miracle Worker. Sure that I could never win the lead against someone with her impressive resume, I lost all confidence and never auditioned. Someone else got the role and I never again had the opportunity to play Juliet.
I was like the Israelite scouts who were sent to spy out the Promised Land. Although they brought back fruit and spoke of the land’s fertility, they referred to the land’s inhabitants as giants and of themselves as mere grasshoppers. Once they’d seen their opponents, the scouts perceived the Canaanites as victorious predators and the Israelites as crushed prey. They lost the war before they’d even picked up a spear.
Standing at the border of a land described as flowing with milk and honey, the Israelites lost faith both in themselves and God; they refused to enter the land God had promised to them. Like me, those scouts failed to understand that theirs was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. God wasn’t going to give them another chance to enter the Promised Land. Afraid of the battle and the challenges ahead of them, the Israelites lost their blessing. It was forty more years before that opportunity came again, not to them, but to the next generation.
Although I’m not likely to battle giants in Canaan, there have been times, like that audition, when I’ve felt as small and ineffectual as a grasshopper. Would I have gotten that role if I’d auditioned? Maybe, maybe not, but I missed the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to find out. God-given opportunities are meant to be taken, not to be passed by or ignored, even when we have formidable opponents or intimidating challenges. We can picture ourselves as children of God, strong, resilient, and ready to step forward in faith or we can picture ourselves as grasshoppers, just waiting to be eaten by a bird or squashed under foot by giants.
The opportunity of a lifetime must be seized within the lifetime of the opportunity. [Leonard Revenhill]
I recently happened upon a YouTube video about a goose and two police officers. A mother goose kept pecking at the window of a parked Cincinnati police car. When the officer opened the door, the goose led him over to one of her babies; it was tangled up in a string tied to a balloon. Concerned that mama goose would attack if he came close to the baby, the first officer stayed back. His partner was a woman and a mother; seeing the anguish of another mother, she went forward and carefully untangled the little gosling while its mama patiently watched and waited. Once free of the twine, the baby rejoined its siblings and the family swam off with their mother.
The book of Daniel was written during the Babylonian captivity. Nebuchadnezzar had assaulted Judah, destroyed Jerusalem and the temple and exiled the people of Judah to Babylon. Jeremiah had prophesized that Jerusalem’s desolation would last seventy years and Daniel realized that their time of exile was nearly complete. After fasting, donning sackcloth, and covering himself with ashes, Daniel passionately prayed and pled with God to return His people to their land.
Jealousy – that green-eyed monster – certainly caused a lot of problems throughout the Bible. The first case of sibling rivalry occurred when Cain, jealous that God approved his brother’s sacrifice but not his, killed Abel. Saul was jealous of David’s popularity and battles were fought, the Jews slandered Paul and Silas because they were jealous of the large crowds that gathered to hear them preach, Jacob was jealous of Esau’s relationship with Isaac, Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery out of jealousy and the prodigal’s brother became jealous when his father threw a party for the black sheep of the family.
Since Jews are prohibited from possessing any food products containing leavening (chametz) during Passover, a Muslim Arab-Israeli man in Abu Ghosh now owns most of the bread, pastries and beer in Israel. As they have for many years, Israel’s two chief rabbis sold all of the leaven food from state-owned companies, the prison system, and the national emergency stores to him. He symbolically purchased the chametz for the duration of Passover by making a small down payment. Having promised to pay an enormous sum at the end of Passover, at week’s end he will tell the rabbis that he can’t pay up, the deal will be canceled, his down payment returned, and Israel again will own its yeast-laden products. Here in the U.S., some Jewish families “sell” their chametz to non-Jewish friends and then put the food in an out-of-the way cupboard. Technically, while still on their property, it’s not really theirs because they’ve “leased” the cupboard to the Gentile buyer. After Passover, the lease expires and the food is sold back to its original owner. While this may circumvent the law, I’m not sure it’s what God had in mind when He commanded, “There must be no yeast bread or any yeast at all found within the borders of your land during this time.” [Exodus 13:7]
Devotions of the Heart 