Twelve Men

 

"Twelve men went to spy out Canaan," Victoria sang to the members of her family sitting around the campfire.  "Ten were bad," and then in a voice somewhere in between a shout and a shriek she sang "TEN WERE BAD!!!!"

As if to prove that this was no mistake, she sang this line of the song again in exactly the same way three more times -- each one to the increasingly loud giggles of her brothers and sister.

At two, Victoria is awfully cute when she sings and she can't be expected to remember all of the words to any song.  It is unfortunate though that she didn't remember that while ten of the spies were bad, two were good.

The song tells in simple language the story of how Moses sent twelve spies into the land of Palestine to search out the land.  Ten of the men came back with stories of the mighty men and cities that they would face and how the whole affair was hopeless.  Joshua and Caleb returned with a glowing message of how wonderful the land was and how God would give them victory.

Mark Antony, when giving his long speech about the recently killed Julius Caesar said "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.  So let it be with Caesar."  It is our human tendency to remember the darkest moments -- the defeats of the past rather than remembering brighter times.

We need to learn from the dark events of the past, but if those are the only things that we focus on then we are bound for despair.  We must remember as well the good times, the times when God brought us through the Red Sea, gave us water from the rock, and Manna from the sky.

It is those things that will keep our faith strong, those victories that will keep us from giving up.

Twelve men went to spy our Canaan.

Ten were bad.

But...

Two were good.