Give Me This Mountain

            In the Old Testament, when the twelve men returned after spying out the Promised Land, ten of them saw giants. Caleb and Joshua saw the faithfulness of YHWH. And because of the bad report of the ten, because of choosing fear over faith, the two spent forty years walking with the unbelievers in circles in the wilderness until the entire generation died out.

            After finally crossing into the land, when Joshua was dividing it between the tribes of Israel, Caleb approached him and said, “You know what YHWH said to Moses...concerning you and me” (Joshua 14:6).

          Caleb had not forgotten. YHWH had promised him an inheritance because he had trusted Him when the others had not. Then he makes a memorable statement. “I am this day eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me...My strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming (Joshua 14:10-11).

            Then he uttered these words, “Now therefore give me this mountain” (Joshua 14:12). Not the valley, or the easiest territory, but the mountain. The one where giants remained, the one everyone else would rather avoid.

            Caleb knew giants are never bigger than YHWH.

         In the Scriptures, there is a Hebrew phrase which describes Caleb again and again. It appears in Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua. God said about him, “But my servant Caleb, because he had a different spirit with him and followed Me fully, I will bring him into the land where he went, and his seed will possess it” (Numbers 14:24 MEV).

            Caleb followed God fully. In Hebrew, it is Mille achar YHWH. The root of the Hebrew word for fully is “male”. It means “to fill,” “to be complete,” “to be full.” Caleb did not follow God halfway; not when it was convenient; not when everyone else agreed with him. He followed fully.

            Could that be said of you and me? Or do we follow only until it becomes uncomfortable, or until giants appear?

            The life of Caleb exposes how easily we settle for partial obedience. Yet Jesus calls us to something greater. “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23).

            Jesus said daily. Not occasionally, or when we feel like it, but daily.

      Caleb never stopped believing YHWH was still working. Forty-five years later, he said, “...Because the Eternal goes with me, I will drive them out, just as He has said” (Joshua 14:12 VOICE). His confidence is not presumptuous. It is not in himself, but in YHWH’s presence. The same God who sustained him in the wilderness, parted the Jordan, brought down the walls of Jericho, would give him his mountain.

         At eighty-five, Caleb successfully claimed the hill country of Hebron, drove out the giant warriors, settled his family with generous land inheritances, and finished his life as a faithful leader of the tribe of Judah.

        Caleb not only inherited a mountain; he left behind something worth following. He left behind a life that was full, not of accomplishments, but of faithfulness.

            Inspiration for this post came from Yael's Letters, "Beyond the Jordan, Part 6"