on the edge

our pastor preached today out of the book of numbers, chapters 13-14. i took one look at the scripture reference before the service and decided i wouldn't be paying much attention today. i mean, have you ever tried to read numbers? it's impossible. good thing i didn't choose my son's name out of there!

but somewhere in the midst of all those lists of people is a lesson that God used to catch my attention today. it's the story of the Israelites being in the desert just on the edge of the Promised Land. with God's direction, they send twelve spies to "scope out" Canaan to develop a strategy for how to take this land, the land they were promised by God. the spies come back and report not a strategy, but two opinions. ten of the spies took one look at the people living in Canaan, reported as being giants, and doubt and disdain set in deeply. to them, those giants were bigger than what God could do. only two of the men felt differently. they saw the same giants, but they believed that their God was bigger. hope and confidence were set into their hearts. they tried to persuade the Israelites, but the Israelites went with the majority, the popular vote. ultimately, the ten spies who made up the majority ended up dying; their children even suffered many years in the desert because of their disbelief.

so what's the lesson here for me? well, honestly, i've been in the doubting majority. even as a Christian, particularly through our pregnancy difficulties, i have believed as the majority do...i bought into the "God can't be bigger than this" mentality for a long time. no wonder i felt defeated, hopeless, afraid, and bitter for so long. i am so thankful that i serve a loving, healing, and patient God. He took my doubt, waited, and moment by moment, day by day, showed me that i didn't have to doubt.

i have entered a time in this pregnancy where my anxiety about what's to come has been taking over my emotions and my thoughts. the worry that i once felt for my son's physical well-being has turned to worries of not being able to be a good mother, and to not being able to keep up with the demands of parenting, working, and being a wife that my husband will actually want to be around. i am rearranging my house at a frantic pace (thanks to some muscles loaned to me by gigi and tida), trying to learn to coupon, and have spent a good deal of time crying over my new stretch marks.

all of this is pointless, and maybe you are laughing at me.  that's ok...it's silly, really. do i need to try and be prepared? sure! but all this effort spent worrying, agonizing, over things that i can't really do anything about (not that i'm not trying...the cocoa butter business must be booming) isn't what God wants for me! He has shown me miracle after miracle, and yet i seem to think He can't handle teaching me to be a good mom? i doubt that He can provide for us financially? and that He can't come up with a few crates or bins to store legos and crayons in? seriously...i needed this lesson this morning. i needed a reminder to take a deep breath and to keep trusting. i needed that still, small voice to say, "it's ok...I've got this too."

those Israelites were on the very edge of the Promised Land; they could physically see it from the desert they were in. and still they doubted. i am no better. but i am trying to see this plan of His. i am trying to look through the fear (the fear that's from satan, by the way...bro. mark preached on spiritual warfare just a month or so ago...that's a whole other blog i need to write sometime). and i am choosing again today, to trust, to not doubt, to breathe, to say thank you. i am so blessed to feel these kicks in my tummy, to get to talk and sing to my child...

we are on the edge of something so beautiful, so precious, so miraculous. i will not doubt my God. He is bigger than any worry or fear i could ever have.