Deuteronomy 1:23-33 “The plan pleased me well; so I took twelve of your men, one man from each tribe. And they departed and went up into the mountains, and came to the Valley of Eshcol, and spied it out. They also took some  of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us; and they brought back word to us, saying, ‘It is a good land which YHWH our God is giving us.’… Yet, for all that, you did not believe YHWH your God, who went in the way before you to search out a place for you to pitch your tents, to show you the way you should go, in the fire by night and in the cloud by day.

When Moses recounted the story of the twelve spies, he left out an important detail: ten of the twelve spies brought back a bad report. “The land is bountiful and beautiful, but we are grasshoppers next to the inhabitants!” Is it any wonder that the people lost their faith? Why did Moses make it sound as if the Israelites doubted God for no good reason?

Because they did! God promised to bring them into the Land. He destroyed Pharaoh’s army and spectacularly broke Egypt’s power. The whole world was soon talking about Israel and her God in fear. Yet when ten men told them how mighty were their enemies, they turned on the God whose presence was physically manifested among them in a gigantic pillar of fire. What were they thinking!? It didn’t matter how many spies came back with a bad report. It didn’t even matter that two of them spoke truthfully. No handful or army of men can stand in the way of God fulfilling his promises to us.

But we can.

Fear is so easy. We entertain it and feed it our whole lives while we starve faith. It’s no wonder we don’t see miracles when by our constant expectations of disaster we accuse God of faithlessness.

There is something wrong with the human mind that we can witness God’s miracles one day and doubt him the next. Our faulty memory fills in the gaps with naturalistic explanations, with gloss and fuzz so that tragedy looms large, but promises fulfilled and prayers answered fade into obscurity.

With the pillar of fire and cloud right there in the camp, the manna appearing every morning, the plague graves still fresh, the Israelites doubted God’s power to bring them into the Promised Land. When they heard God’s judgment of their lapse, they compounded their lack of faith with disobedience. The end of fear–as it always is–was death.

Every one of us lives this same pattern of fear and forgetfulness. It is inherent in the fallen human condition. As a partial remedy, God gave us reminders of his actions, promises, and commands: the feast days, sacrifices, tzitziyot, etc. When we wonder what is the point of those things today, we have only to look in the mirror.

We are all afraid from time to time. Some of us are afraid for much longer periods. This is no excuse. God has entrusted each and every person with some job to do for his kingdom. If you have lived for more than a few decades, then you probably only have to look back at your life to see plainly what talents God has entrusted to your care. If you betray that trust by burying his talent in the ground, he might not be so understanding when he returns to see how you have used it.

Matthew 25:30  Cast the unprofitable servant into outer darkness where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Yeshua does not suffer from Nice Guy Syndrome. He is compassionate when he deems it appropriate, and at other times he is unmerciful and violent. Many, many times we are commanded not to fear obedience or its consequences, but to fear God instead. You were created for a purpose. If you do not fulfill that purpose, of what use are you?

Matthew 7:19  Every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down, and cast into the fire.

Fear may keep you safe and warm today, but it will destroy you when it really counts.

You are a singularity, a star alone like no other. The stars they glitter, they sing and dance and draw into you. In all their brightness and glory they cannot compare to you. You draw all things into you. Dwelling on the mountain fastness, far in deep darkness and none can approach your greatness, your fierceness and fury. In darkness you outshine them all, and nothing escapes the gravity of your majesty, your love for us, the merest specks in a vast nothingness, outshone by the dimmest of stars, but the focus yet of all your energy, your radiative purity, washing all that comes near, blotting out the dimness in which we glory, making us infinite through you, your transcendent power transmitted to us instantaneously no matter the distance, the space we occupy. These are nothing to you, beside you, Creator, Destroyer, Remaker of worlds. We submit ourselves to you, surrender to your inevitable will. We are nothing in nothing. May all we are and all we will ever be, be subsumed in your all encompassing sphere. May our horizons grow from the illusion of infinite expanse to the infinite reality of constriction within you. May our death in you be our reawakening in life and love and everlasting spirit.

Peace we find in sublimation to your infinite mass.

Exodus 20:20  And Moses said to the people, Do not fear, for God has come to test you, and so that His fear may be before your faces, so that you may not sin.

If we are meant to fear God, why did Moses tell the people not to fear?

Many times our lives pass through the same cycle that Israel experienced in Torah. We find ourselves in the wilderness again and again. Each time, God brings us there to test and refine us. Whenever a person is confronted by God, he may respond in one of two ways: He could fall back as in John 18:6 or he could fall on his face as in Genesis 17:3. In the presence of God, destruction is inevitable. Those who resist fall back and are destroyed, given over to death. Those who surrender are destroyed also, but are resurrected to new life one step closer to the perfection which God desires for us.

Life is hard enough already, and the constant tests and refinement to which God subjects his people sometimes seem unbearable. Relax. Surrender and you will find peace. You will never be perfect in this life, but you can draw ever closer to your Creator and find peace in the continuous cycle of death and rebirth which is intrinsic to true Life.

Exodus 6:29-7:2  YHWH spoke to Moses, saying, I am YHWH. You speak to Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I say to you.  (30)  And Moses said before YHWH, Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips, and how shall Pharaoh listen to me?  (1)  And YHWH said to Moses, See, I have made you a god to Pharaoh. And Aaron your brother shall be your prophet.  (2)  You shall speak all that I command you. And Aaron your brother shall speak to Pharaoh, he will send the sons of Israel out of his land.

When God said, “I am YHWH,” he summed up half the book of Job in a single, short sentence. He said, “I am the God who is, was, and will be. I am the Creator, the Builder, the Founder, and the Destroyer. No one moves or breathes or dies without my knowledge. Nothing is beyond my authority and power.”

God called Moses, the inarticulate, murdering exile, to be the judge of Pharaoh, the most powerful man in his world. And Moses doubted. “But who am I to confront Pharaoh? I’m not a great orator. No one listens to me when I speak.”

Like so many of us, Moses didn’t believe it when God told him who he was. Every one of us have a divinely appointed role, and when we doubt, when we hold back, saying, “I could never do that!” we tell God that we don’t believe in him.

I’m not smart enough.

I have a terrible memory.

I’m not a people person.

I’m afraid.

I’m too shy.

I’m not a leader.

Many others are so much better then me.

It might hurt my business.

I don’t want to offend anyone.

I’m too strange already.

These have been my excuses. To every single one of them, God has the same response: “I am YHWH. Who are you to question me?”

Job 38:2-8  Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?  (3)  Now gird up your loins like a man; for I will ask of you, and you teach Me.  (4)  Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell if you have understanding!  (5)  Who has set its measurements, for you know? Or who has stretched the line on it?  (6)  On what are its bases sunk, or who cast its cornerstone,  (7)  when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?  (8)  Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it broke forth as it came from the womb?

Do not fear. Do not hesitate. Do not doubt.

God knows who you are!