Gospel Prism

I love Caleb’s boldness and love for God’s glory. It’s the main reason we gave our first (and only) son Jack the middle name Caleb. My hope for Jack is that if he is ever given insurmountable odds, and a choice to choose to trust God or trust anyone else, he will quickly choose God at all times. I was reading Joshua 14:6-9, when Caleb says:

You know what the LORD said to Moses the man of God in Kadesh-barnea concerning you and me. 7I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, and I brought him word again as it was in my heart. 8But my brothers who went up with me made the heart of the people melt; yet I wholly followed the LORD my God. 9And Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever, because you have wholly followed the LORD my God.’

I love how he describes himself as one who ‘wholly followed the Lord.’ He repeats it twice because this is what marks him as a man. He is a WHOLLY follower of our great God. It is far too easy to “follow the Lord.� So many people, including myself, follow the Lord. But to wholly follow Him means that in all circumstances, when faced with that great decision, “Shall I trust God or shall I trust my own convenience and comfort?� it is far too easy to no longer follow the Lord. When Jesus spoke to his disciples about eating his flesh and drinking his blood to gain eternal life, John records, “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him� (John 6:66). These are not the first and last “disciples� to no longer wholly follow the Lord.

Caleb saw the odds stacked Israel and his first inclination was to think, “God can certainly do this, therefore, we need not even flinch at what we think from human standards is impossible.� I hope Jack grows up to have Caleb’s heart and boldness and wholly devotion. I pray that I grow to be like Caleb. I pray that my church also grows in such a way.