It's Not Too Late to Take Your Mountain

So, most of us know the story of how Israel ended up wandering in the wilderness for forty years. God told Moses to send spies to check out the land He was giving Israel—not the land He was thinking about giving them or might give them. Nope. God told Israel to go check out the land He promised to give them (as in, this is a done deal). So, Moses sent twelve men to spy out the land. Instead of focusing on the land, as God had told them, ten of the twelve spies focused on the people in the land and got intimidated. Why did they get intimidated? Because the people they saw in the land were strong, they were big, they were everywhere, and they were all hostile to Israel. After seeing this, ten of the twelve spies came back and delivered a report that invoked fear in people. The people, in turn, doubted God’s ability to give them the land He’d promised, and so they demanded that Moses take them back to Egypt. Instead of returning to Egypt, however, the people ended up taking a forty-year stroll through the wilderness. At the end of the forty years, all of those who believed the bad report of the ten spies and refused to trust God had been buried in the wilderness. But then there were the other two spies, Joshua and Caleb.

Joshua and Caleb never doubted God’s ability to deliver Canaan to Israel just as He had promised. And as a result, they alone of all the adults who were alive during that time were

allowed to go into the Promised Land. Caleb, who was forty years old when he and the other spies went to investigate Canaan, is now eighty-five years old. He has spent the past forty-five years fighting to secure territory in the Promised Land for his Israelite brothers. After forty-five years, Caleb comes to Joshua requesting land for himself. This eighty-five-year-old man doesn’t ask for a nice, peaceful meadow in which the enemy has already been driven out to quietly live out his last days. Nope. Caleb asks for a mountain, and not just any mountain. Caleb asks for a mountain in which the Anakim dwelt, the same giants who’d intimidated Israel a generation before. Why would Caleb do such a thing at eighty-five? Because at eighty-five, Caleb still wholly followed and still wholly trusted God.

Eighty-five-year-old Caleb goes to Joshua and says:

“And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, as He said, these forty-five years, ever since the Lord spoke this word to Moses while Israel wandered in the wilderness; and now, here I am this day, eighty-five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me; just as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war, both for going out and for coming in. Now therefore, give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke in that day; for you heard in that day how the Anakim were there, and that the cities were great and fortified. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord said” (Joshua 14:10-12).

Joshua gave Caleb the mountain he asked for. The name of Caleb’s territory came to be known as Hebron. Before that it was called Kirjath Arba, which means “city of Arba.” Who was Arba? Joshua 14:15 tells us that “Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim.” Arba was the Goliath of Caleb’s day. What that means is that, at eighty-five years old, Caleb fought the chief giant among those who had once intimidated his people in order to claim that which God had promised him more than four decades earlier.

Who or what is the Goliath of your day? Who or what stands between you and that which God has promised you? Is it time? Do you feel like you’re too old to pursue the promise? Is it a fortified wall that seems insurmountable? Is it a giant(s)? Whatever it is, know that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. What He did for Caleb, He will do for you. Now, here’s the thing. You have the option of not trusting God and wandering in the desert like that first generation out of Egypt did, or you can choose to wholly follow and wholly trust God like Caleb did and declare with divine boldness, “Give me my mountain!” The choice is yours.