Seeing isn't believing, it's only the setup for the payoff

Numbers 13
17  Moses gave the men these instructions as he sent them out to explore the land: “Go north through the Negev into the hill country.
18  See what the land is like, and find out whether the people living there are strong or weak, few or many. 19  See what kind of land they live in. Is it good or bad? Do their towns have walls, or are they unprotected like open camps?
20  Is the soil fertile or poor? Are there many trees? Do your best to bring back samples of the crops you see.” (It happened to be the season for harvesting the first ripe grapes.)

These verses are the instructions that Moses gave his folks when they were supposed to "scout out" the land that God was about to give to Israel.  What ended up happening is that after 40 days of scouting the land, the team came back and about 80% of them were COMPLETELY opposed to trying to take the land...they were scared out of their mind... Even though, their nation had gone through a LONG journey, all the while, dreaming and relying on God through ENORMOUS struggles and hardship to get them right where they were...to this land.  It was their goal!  It was a motivation...and right at the edge of it, they were scared to death and said "no". 

My thought was "why even have them scout it, God?  I mean, You had decided on the destination...they had given up LOADS of stuff and followed You across treacherous ground to get there.   What was the point of evaluating now?"  Was this a bad leadership decision?  Of course not...it was a misunderstood command.

I think God does this to us...He asks us to really take a look at what's about to happen.  In His plan, He wants to us realize the immensity of the task He's about to accomplish.  It's not about deciding on an action, it's about setting up the praise for God and His power.  If we don't take in the huge task He's doing, our praise doesn't fill out, because without some sort of realization of how difficult and impossible the task is, we don't burst forth with how great God is through it.

Here's our problem...we think that when God calls us to "check it out", that somehow that's God saying "I don't know about this, what do you think?" and for a lot of us, we take that as our chance to get out of the scary thing in front of us...we run like scalded dogs.  We don't realize that God is just saying "Check this out...see how scary impossible the task is...got it...now WATCH THIS!"  Sadly for a lot of us, we have turned tail and are running at "see how scary it is" and we never get to the "WATCH THIS!" or even the incredible move of God that happens next that inspires us and challenges us and makes a statement to the entire world around how incredibly unbelievable God's ability and power is...  We miss the "I'm the master of it all" statement...sad.

Stick in there and realize that if God told you to do it...and you KNOW that for a fact... wait for the win, because it's coming.

Continue to pray for us at Bay West Church, as we try to be a church in Palm Bay and communicate Christ to west Palm Bay, Florida.