A STARTLING DISCOVERY

(Disclaimer: Those of you who didn’t like the book The Shack probably won’t like this article either. I’m okay with that! As a friend, I will defend to the death your right to be wrong.)

The following begins with a story. I have purposely left out names to protect the guilty!

Going into a church the other day, I accidentally discovered a group of very small people. I’m not sure if they were pygmies or midgets, but there seemed to be quite a few of them.

Here’s what happened! I wasn’t trying to be clumsy but sometimes I just am, and I tripped over something I didn’t see. When I looked down to see what got in my way, well, I can’t tell you how surprised and embarrassed I was when I realized that I had tripped over a person, a little person. I mumbled my apology and moved on and took my seat. Looking around, I realized that there were little people scattered throughout the church crowd. It was a veritable invasion—where in the world could all these little folks have come from?

Believe it or not, Moses faced the same situation when he led the Jews through the wilderness. What should have been a couple months’ journey ended up taking 40 years (talk about a slow train—this one was a beaut for being slow). Moses took the nation to the edge of the Jordan but before they crossed over, the patriarch followed God’s instructions to send a group of twelve spies across the Jordan and into the Promised Land.

Off went Joshua, Caleb and ten others (fortunately we don’t know much about the rest because they went in as men and came out as midgets). I can hear derision rising among some of my family and friends now as they begin to think, “David is finally displaying the onset of the crippling disease known as Charismatic Space Loopiness.” Well, hang on before you pronounce me incurable.

When the twelve spies came back, only Joshua and Caleb were pumped up and ready to go. These two recognized the challenges that the nation faced and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able…” (Numbers 13:30 NKJV).
The other ten declared that the Jews could not secure the country and defeat the enemy. They declared that they would be lunch for the hostile forces arrayed against them. Further, they declared that all the enemy soldiers were giants and they themselves were little people in the face of the enemy. “We were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight” (Numbers 13:33 NKJV). The unbelief of the ten hindered the progress of Israel and lifted God’s blessing for them to enter the Promised Land at this time. It would be years before God would allow them to cross over into the fullness of what God had prepared for them.

What are grasshoppers but bugs that are of little or no significance? Is that how we are supposed to think of ourselves, as bugs or midgets? I don’t think so!

When we perceive ourselves as being of little or no significance in God’s great plan, we demean God and His plan, we demean ourselves, and we end up being of little or no use to Him. We actually assign ourselves to the ranks of the “little people.

So, then, how are we to think of ourselves? Are we to be puffed up and act like an arrogant televangelist clone? I don’t think so. So I ask again, how should we see ourselves? Paul answers that question in Romans 12:3: “Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.”

Fortunately, this condition of smallness is treatable. In your heart you know what the prescription is; it’s not complicated but it does take the regular application of the basics. The biggest struggle is not with the prescription but it’s with us, the church of today, not willing to admit we are actually a church of “little people.” Every church should have a good number of “newborn” babes in Christ and that is not what we are talking about. It’s healthy for a church to have lots of “newborns.” But when there is an abundance of little people, adults who have never grown up, we have a problem. And that will be a troubled church.

We need to refocus our own understanding of who we are in Christ. We are to see ourselves as God sees us and as His word declares.

How does God see us?
• He sees me as His child and a joint heir with Jesus! (Romans 8:17).
• God says that His children are “more than conquerors” (Romans 8:37). What does that mean to you?
• God sees me as an “overcomer” (1 John 5:4 and 1 John 4:4).

I have accepted Jesus as my personal savior and the Holy Spirit indwells me.
I have God’s Word to guide me.
I have an ongoing conversation with God through prayer.
I have the support of friends who love God just as I do.
Therefore I am not a grasshopper, I am a man of God!