OUR WHAT FOR/WHY...

When God whispers a promise unto our hearts, it fills us with hope and joyful expectation.  Oftentimes, that promise, by the sight of our flesh is “crazy” unattainable, and sometimes we just can’t make sense of how God is going to get us there…even in this lifetime; BUT, because He has whispered and spoken His promised Word unto our hearts, we hold on.  He is the WHY, the WHAT FOR, which causes us to wait, with patient enduring faith. 

Our WHY, or our WHAT FOR...is not the promise…It is the promise giver.  The promise giver never fails.  His Word never returns void and always accomplishes what He sets out for it to do.
 Our WHAT FOR/WHY is bigger than anything we may encounter.

Are you familiar with the story in Numbers 13 where God told Moses to spy out the land of Canaan?  God told Moses to send out men to spy out the land of Canaan which He was giving to the children of Israel, He directed Moses “from each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, everyone a leader among them.”  After forty days the men returned and gave their report…

“We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.  Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there.  The Amakalites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan”…..Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.”…  But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we” And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight. Numbers 13:27-33
 
Caleb and Joshua went to the same place as the rest of the spies, and saw the same things… but I believe the difference for them, was keeping their hearts and minds submitted to God.  They believed Him at His Word.  They did not allow what they could see to deter their belief in the promises God had spoken. 

“They spoke to the congregation of Israel saying” The land we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land.  If the Lord delights in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us, ‘a land which flows with milk and honey.’  Only do not rebel against the LORD, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us.  Do not fear them.” Numbers 13:7-9

Caleb wholly followed God.  He was all in. He believed God, and His WHAT FOR was bigger than the giants that he encountered.  He did not allow the circumstance to melt his heart nor change His trust in the LORD. He hung on to the promise and 45 years later He inherited the land that God promised (check out Joshua 14).

May we all be like Caleb, that we side with the LORD; that we will not be afraid of the Lord’s enemies although others may be, that we would rather risk our lives than forsake God, that we would be longsuffering with others, and continue with great enthusiasm and faith for God no matter how long it takes to reach the promise that God speaks to our hearts.