Perception vs Faith…

Isn’t it amazing that two people can participate in an event and yet tell two totally different stories about it. Two people can experience something and then have two different attitudes about it. Take this passage in Numbers chapter 12 for instance. The 12 spies go to the promised land. They see all that’s there, even taking some of the harvest as examples of its bounty, and return to give a report. Everyone agrees, it is a beautiful and prosperous place. However, 10 of the spies tell Moses and the Israelites the people there are too strong for them, but Joshua and Caleb tell them they can conquer the place and live in the “land of milk and honey”. Perception is heavily influenced by what you believe. Our world view has so much influence, most don’t even realize it. Joshua and Caleb’s perception was “this place can be ours, with God’s help”. Yet the other 10 spies painted the picture of “we can’t go in there or we will die”. How often do you allow your perception to override your faith? If You know God wants you to do something, how often do you let fear stop you from doing it? We live in a world in which feelings are given more and more power to influence, causing more and more anxiety, worry, strife, fear, and the list goes on. Instead of giving in to fear and causing us to stop and retreat, why not give faith a chance? If God is in it, it will succeed. You can’t stop God from accomplishing His will. Stop focusing on what you can’t, and start doing what you can. That’s perception that focuses on what God can do, and not what you can’t do. At the end of your life will you be filled with regret because you perceived things to be hard so you quit trying? Or will you be proud of all that you’ve done because you believed God and put your faith into action? Perception vs faith, they are two totally different things, don’t confuse the two. With God all things are possible.

25 After exploring the land for forty days, the men returned 26 to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community of Israel at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran. They reported to the whole community what they had seen and showed them the fruit they had taken from the land. 27 This was their report to Moses: “We entered the land you sent us to explore, and it is indeed a bountiful country–a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is the kind of fruit it produces. 28 But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak! 29 The Amalekites live in the Negev, and the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country. The Canaanites live along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and along the Jordan Valley.”30 But Caleb tried to quiet the people as they stood before Moses. “Let’s go at once to take the land,” he said. “We can certainly conquer it!”31 But the other men who had explored the land with him disagreed. “We can’t go up against them! They are stronger than we are!” 32 So they spread this bad report about the land among the Israelites: “The land we traveled through and explored will devour anyone who goes to live there. All the people we saw were huge. 33 We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!” Numbers 13:25-33