Wholly Following

The Bible speaks of the patience of Job (James 5:11) and the patience of the church in Ephesus (Revelation 2:2). We as Christians are told to be patient in tribulation (Romans 12:12) and patient towards others (1 Thessalonians 5:14).

We are told to be patient in waiting for the return of Christ (2 Thessalonians 3:5) and to patiently endure like a farmer, waiting for his harvest to grow. (James 5:7-8) But this week, the idea of Biblical patience was made real to me by a living illustration I had never recognized before.

If you have read through the Old Testament, you may remember the twelve spies sent in to see what the land of Canaan was like. Poised on the threshold of  God’s promise, the people waited, watching for the return of the spies.

No doubt they all expected nothing but good from the spies as they returned bearing examples of the land’s abundant fruitfulness. But instead, ten of the spies began voicing fears and doubts. The two remaining spies spoke up, encouraging the people to look to the Lord, reminding them that, “We are well able to overcome it.”(Numbers 13:30)

The people, as you and I often do, would not listen to the voice of truth, but instead let fear sway them. When they refused to go into the land, God stepped in, and told them what their stubborn lack of faith had cost them:

“Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against Me, Doubtless ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised…After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know My breach of promise.” (Numbers 14:29-31, 34)

Caleb was one of only two adults who would be allowed to enter the land, but have you ever thought about the fact that he had to wait out the forty years with everyone else? Despite his fight for the truth, and God’s promise of blessing, Caleb had forty long years before the promise would be brought to fruition.

I wonder what his thoughts were as the Israelites turned away from the Jordan and began the trek back into the wilderness. Caleb had actually seen the land, had walked through it and surveyed it, but now he had to wait. In a sense, the waiting wasn’t even his fault—he was experiencing the consequences of the sins of others.

And yet, though Caleb doesn’t show up again until a brief mention in Numbers 26, certifying the fact that, he and Joshua alone were left of their generation, we don’t see any indication that he allowed bitterness or resentment towards God or others to build over those years of waiting and wandering. In fact, the very next mention of him gives us this incredible glimpse into his heart. In Numbers 32, Moses is summarizing the history of Israel’s forty-year wandering, and notice what is said about Caleb and Joshua:

“Surely none of the men that came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob; because they have not wholly followed Me: Save Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite, and Joshua the son of Nun: for they have wholly followed the Lord.” (vv.11-12)

Joshua and Caleb both responded to their forty-year detour with faith and patience, wholly following the Lord. Both men faced the same long wait, but Caleb in particular stands out to me. Joshua was serving Moses, being prepared to lead the people into the land, but Caleb seems to have just been an ordinary person, living his daily life.

I don’t know if waiting was ever hard for him, and I don’t know if he struggled to have a right attitude or perspective on the situation. But I do know that God was faithful. When it was time for Israel to finally take the land, Caleb makes this remarkable statement:

“Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me to espy out the land; and I brought Him word again as it was in mine heart. Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt: but I wholly followed the Lord my God…

And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as He said, these forty and five years, even since the Lord spake this word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness: and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old.

As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in.” (Joshua 14:7-8, 10-11)

This was Caleb’s moment, the day he had been promised, when he would go out to take the land God had promised him. He had waited forty years, and now was 85 years old.

You and I might have bewailed the waste of his “best years” for battle, but God knew what He was doing. He kept Caleb strong and enabled him for the work he was to do. The waiting wasn’t a waste.

Caleb’s life illustrates the words of Hebrews 10:36:

“For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.”

Caleb simply did the will of God, and at the appointed time, saw and rejoiced in God’s faithfulness.

Now, how about you, dear Reader? Are you in a season of waiting? Do you feel that you are bearing the consequences of someone else’s sin? Look to God like Caleb did, and wholly follow Him, knowing that nothing yielded into the hands of God can ever be wasted.

“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” 

James 1:2-4