One of my favorite passages in the Bible is found in Joshua 14:6-12. Israel is finally dividing the Promised Land after wandering in the desert for decades, and Caleb leans over to Joshua and speaks the words found in the passage.
You need to remember that years and years earlier, these were the only two spies that said they should go into the land God had promised then, and with that context, listen to the sense of destiny in Caleb’s words now:
I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land. And I brought him back a report according to my convictions, but my brothers who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt with fear. I, however, followed the LORD my God wholeheartedly. So on that day Moses swore to me, ‘The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the LORD my God wholeheartedly.’ (verses 7-9)
A sense of destiny
Caleb had this sense of destiny. As we’ll find out, he had waited 45 years to receive what he KNEW God was going to give him. Can’t you see it? Every day for 45 years, every step around that hot, dusty desert, every funeral service he attended for those other 10 spies didn’t discourage him from his destiny, they motivated him to hold on more strongly than ever before.
What does a sense of destiny feel like? A thought in the back of your mind that won’t go away, an unsettled “there’s got to be more than this” feeling even in the good times, a resoluteness that says I won’t stop until I see “it”, even though you won’t know what “it” is until “it” happens!
A voice of confidence
Caleb continued:
Now then, just as the LORD promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the desert. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now give me this hill country that the LORD promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the LORD helping me, I will drive them out just as he said. (verses 10-12)
Do you here it? The unwavering, steady voice of a man who was waited more than half his life to see the fulfillment of God’s destiny in his life? Not just confident in what God had finally provided, but confident in the fact that it wasn’t the final provision. “I know there are those dang Anakites in their fortified cities, but by golly, the LORD Who fulfilled one promise will help me get rid of ’em!”
85 years old, and believing God for greater things. Why? Because his lifelong sense of destiny had given him a voice of confidence.
There are plenty of other examples of this in Scripture. David felt destined to fight Goliath, and spoke to the giant with boldness. Moses (even as he stuttered) spoke confidently for God in front of Pharaoh. But today, on Resurrection Sunday, I think of the empty tomb and how the fulfillment of that promise to not allow death to hold God’s Son should give us a voice of confidence to stand before a dying world and confidently proclaim: “He’s alive! He’s alive!”
It is our destiny to share Him with the lost souls around us. Do it boldly.
