Glimpses of Israel - Israel's Deep South
by Joseph Hunting
If ever there is a lesson to be learnt today it is from the events which occurred at Kadesh Barnea 3,500 years ago.
It was from Kadesh Barnea that Israel was to possess the Promised Land. Twelve spies had just searched the land for forty days. Evidence of its fruitfulness was a single bunch of grapes so huge that it had to be borne upon a pole by two men. But there were also giants in the land and their cities appeared to be "walled up to heaven". Of the twelve spies only Caleb and Joshua counselled the people that "the God that brought us out (of Egypt) is well able to take us in (to Canaan) ".
The decision made by Israel not to enter the Promised Land didn't alter God's promise to their Fathers, but it sealed the fate of every Hebrew over the age of twenty, except Caleb and Joshua. Their bones were to bleach in the desert during forty years of aimless wandering in that terrible wilderness.
It was God's purpose that His people begin "possessing their possessions" from Kadesh Barnea. Theirs was to be a triumphant entry into "a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates, a land of oil olive and honey, a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness; thou shalt not lack anything in it." (Deuteronomy 8:7-9).
How easy it is for us to miss God's perfect plan for our lives simply because we choose to substitute our plan for His, or like Israel of old, turn back because of fear and unbelief.