Welcome to the “Front-Porch.”
Testing faith when the waters are smooth and tranquil is like me testing one of my ballplayer’s mettle by shooting shots in practice with no pressure and no hand in their face.
No, if you want to check their mettle, you wind the clock down to ten seconds, put us down one, set the ball in that player’s hand, and watch to see what happens.
You’ll walk away with a good idea what his “mettle” is, and that’s even if the shot bounces off the rim. The test is how he seized the moment – not the final result.
No, to test faith, you have to put somebody through the fire.
Take Caleb of the Old Testament, for example. I’ve been showing clips of him on film for a long time. He knew how to seize the moment.
We first meet him over in the 13th chapter of Numbers, and we get a thorough scouting report quickly.
He’s not afraid to go against the grain; he doesn’t need lengthy speeches to get him to do what the Lord has told him to do; he is always prepared to take on the challenge regardless of the opposition; and he is never, ever afraid of the moment. The moment is never too big for him.
He knew that – when it came right down to it – the main opposition people have is themselves.
But the moment was way too big for ten of the twelve spies that Moses sends over to Canaan to spy it out.
They all take the scouting trip, and they all see the exact same thing. The land really was flowing with milk and honey, exactly as the Lord had promised. And it wasn’t as if Caleb got a better vantage point or some inside information. He saw exactly what they did. The only “inside information” he had was what he put inside his mind when the Lord promised them the land of Canaan.
But in another way, Caleb doesn’t see what they saw. They saw massive walled cities, huge armies, and giants in the land.
Caleb didn’t see any of those things. He may have glanced at them, but he didn’t stare a hole through them. He was probably wondering the whole time why in the world they needed that trip in the first place.
What overwhelmed these ten faithless spies was not only what they saw, but it was what they didn’t see, too. They didn’t see a plan by which they could win battles against those people. Thus, unwittingly they taught us what faith is and what faith is not.
Faith is not based on the seen. Faith is based on what we cannot see. The minute we depend on what we see to believe, our faith is not faith at all.
The Lord required them to believe in something they could not see, and that was too big a task. “The moment was too big for them” – that’s a good way to look at it.
I can hear them rebel. “No, Lord, don’t expect me to believe just because you said it. Show me your plan, and I’ll let you know if it’s good enough.”
Truth is, they were already defeated the minute they saw the giants. The discussion in front of the congregation was just a formality. When we have to call a meeting, deliberate, take a vote, run it by people to do what the Lord has said to do, the game’s already lost.
No wonder Caleb is beside himself when he hears all their gobbledygook. Those unbelievers beat everything he’d ever seen. He had already determined his vote a long time before. He didn’t have to go over to spy the land to figure out his vote, and he sure didn’t need to call a meeting.
What he needed was simple: He needed somebody to take the ball in his hands, put some fire in his eyes, lower his shoulder, and drive the lane like he meant it.
Coach Steven Ray Bowen served as a teacher and basketball coach at Red Oak High from 1998-2012 and recently came out of retirement twice for teaching tours at Ferris and Waxahachie High Schools. He and his wife Marilyn (the “amazin’ blonde”) have slowed down some of their travels and reconvened in their evangelistic work with the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl/Ovilla Roads, in addition to Coach’s work as a writer and author, including the working to publish “Crossing The Georgia Line” that ran in the Ellis County Press. Call or text (972) 824-5197, email coachbowen1984@gmail.com, and see frontporchgospel.com.