Caleb

Today I have a lot on my mind. One of those things is yesterday’s sermon. Larry taught us about Caleb. Now we have been studying the book of Joshua for a while now but he is honing in on Caleb right now. Back in the book of Numbers, God said that Caleb had a “Different spirit” because Caleb followed God “whole-heartedly”. God also promised land to Caleb and his tribe. Specific land, special land. He promised Caleb Hebron. Hebron was where Abraham and Sara and Rebecca and family were all buried. Hebron was God’s land; sacred land. Well if we fast forward to the book of Joshua, when it came time to divide up the land, Joshua and the priest were going to leave it up to God by drawing lots. Well, all this time later (45 years to be exact), Caleb reminded Joshua of the Lord’s promise to Caleb. So Caleb and his tribe received Hebron. Caleb defeated all the people who were defiling the land there and he lived there all his days. But still in the book of Joshua, Caleb is described as a man who followed God wholeheartedly.

Caleb certainly must have trusted God! He patiently waited for 45years to receive the land God had promised him. He was 40 years old when he was promised. That means he was 85 years old when the promise was fulfilled. Scripture also said that Caleb remained physically strong and able to battle even though he was at such an advanced age. Also, as a side note, Joshua lived to be120 years old. So he spent 35 years in his promised land.

So the question posed to us in the sermon was: What does it mean to have a “different spirit” and how can we achieve having a “different spirit”? Caleb had a different spirit because he trusted and followed God completely. Everything that Caleb did involved God’s council. We know this because in the scripture Caleb says “The Lord sent me…; followed the Lord my God…;”. Caleb  references the Lord in most of his actions when he is reminding Joshua of the promise. I know that scripture tells us to pray about everything. God wants to be involved in our lives, even the silly little things. So, how can we have a different spirit? We can involve God in everything in our lives. We can pray without ceasing. We can ask God to help guide all of our decisions. We can praise God in every situation. We can shift our focus to God and away from our problems, those people we don’t like and the times in our lives that we just can’t seem to stop thinking on.

I know that the things above are hard to do but we can start small. We can start by praying constantly. First thing in the morning we can thank God for waking us up and ask him to guide our day. We can enjoy some time in God’s word while we are eating our breakfast or drinking our coffee in the morning. We can pray for our country or just any situation that we see in the news. We can pray when things pop in our minds. We can pray for correction, comfort, peace when things get out of hand. We can spend our day talking to God. We can make time to be in God’s Word, even if it is just a couple of scriptures at a time. We can meditate on those scriptures. We can buy the Bible on audiobook or a Christian bible study on audio book to listen to during a long commute. There are so many ways we can stay plugged into God during our day. God provides the opportunities, you have to take them.

I know one thing is for sure. It may sound like I have it all figured out but you know what, I really and truly don’t. I don’t have that different spirit yet. I know I am really striving to have that kind of spirit. I am not in God’s word as much as I should be. I don’t pray nearly as much as I need to. I don’t listen to God’s voice like I should. I am so far away but I do know that a journey begins with one step. Just one step, then another, then another and so on and eventually you make it to your destination.