Accepting God's Best

“Yea, they despised the pleasant land, they believed not his word:” (Ps 106:24 AV)

 

The direct context here is Israel’s rejection of Canaan after they had escaped from Egypt.  Think of the ten bad spies and the two good spies.  There was a land promised to them better than anything they had ever had before.  It was a land flowing with milk and honey. When the twelve spies returned from the land, it took several men to carry a vine of grapes straddling a large pole.  Caleb and Joshua assured their nation that if they trusted in the LORD, this land could be theirs.  All they needed to do was to order a battle, one enemy at a time, and trust the LORD to lead them through it.  Yet, the pessimists outnumbered the optimists and ten of the spies did not think victory could be theirs even if God were to assist.  Simply put, they would not act in faith.  There are two truths here that stand out to me.  First, the land which God has for us is a pleasant one.  He does not wish us to needlessly suffer.  Rather, His provision for us is both necessary and pleasant.  There may be hardships along the way.  The people would have to go into battle and there would be losses.  They would have to clear the land and till it.  They would have to fortify it against future enemies.  But it was far superior to the wilderness and definitely a step up from Egypt.  Secondly, it takes faith to live in God’s pleasant land.  This is unavoidable.  Faith is why we were created.

When I was a child, we camped a lot.  I mean, a lot.  If we were not in tents for a total of about forty-five to sixty days a year, it was not a typical year.  Between all the weekend camping trips we did while in Boy Scouts to the family trips we took for at least six weeks a year, we spent a lot of time in the woods.  The thing about camping is the work involved in simply existing.  It took a great deal of time and effort to make the outdoors livable.  We had to set up our tents and the camper.  We had to clear the site.  We had to gather firewood for several days’ use.   We had to gather and boil water.  Then there was helping my mother cook and clean up after each meal.  There were clearing trails and other outdoor chores.  Then there was the ever-rising outhouse.  My father and this grand idea of building a log structure around a hole in the ground from scratch.  We had to cut down and shape pine into large lincoln logs.  It never did rise more than about four or five feet.  Just high enough to obscure but not too high where to occupant could ward off an awkward situation.  There was clearing the badminton court.  There was clearing the access road.  The chores were often endless.  To us, this wasn’t a pleasant land.  However, after about three or four days, our chores were done and the woods and pond were ours.  We hiked, rode our bikes, built new trails, cut down thorn apple trees, and played a lot of volleyball or badminton.  We spent the rainy days in the tent camper playing board games.  Depending on how one looked at life, this was a nightmare or a pleasant land.

Faith is the key.  We have to believe what God has for us is pleasant.  Then once convinced, by faith we need to pursue it.  This is where Israel failed.  No doubt it was better than where they came from and what they had.  This was a no-brainer.  What they lacked was faith.  They chose to look at the obstacles and believe them to be too large for God to handle.  They didn’t think God could overcome the adversary before them.  They simply did not have the faith necessary to grab that which God had for them.  This got me thinking.  One wonders just how much of the pleasant land we have lost because we either did not think it was pleasant or we lacked the faith to seize it.  One wonders if our pessimism only sees that which cannot be done as opposed to what could be done.  Or, perhaps we are even a little bit darker and believe the pleasant land God has for us cannot possibly be for us because we are so vile God would never think to bless us.  Maybe our lack of faith is not a lack of believing God ‘can’ do it, but rather, God ‘will’ do it.  To some of us, we accept the natural attributes of God but have a hard time believing in God’s moral attributes.   The land is pleasant.  There are great things about it.  First and foremost, sweet fellowship with God.  But we must accept it by faith or it sits there – feral and untamed – neglected for lack of faith and desire.