The GI-ants

UV 1688/10000 The GI-ants
And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.
Numbers 13 v 33

The people of Israel saw themselves as tiny, weak or puny as ants. They recognized how vulnerable they were against the giants of the land. They were living by sight and not by faith in the God who had done mighty miracles to deliver them from the bondage of Pharaoh and Egypt, the superpower of the ancient world. We too regard ourselves often as if we are as weak as ants due to what I call the ANT –process- an automatic negative thought process that limits our growth, locks us up in fears, real and imaginary, destroys our confidence in the Lord, others and ourselves. Instead, we are called to be GI-ants or “God Inspired ants” who can defeat any giant in our land.

Moses had chosen twelve men to spy out the land of Canaan that God had promised them. Of them ten had low esteem of themselves, of Moses and of God that they gave in to the fears inspired by what they saw- the men were strong, the cities were walled and fortified. They had seen how through forty years, the Lord had delivered them and led them through many ups and downs and all kinds of experiences of victory against all odds, yet in forty days of spying on the land they were promised as their possession, they had lost the vision, become discouraged and overcome by fear. The past nearly forty years the Lord has led me from one victory to another but I can loose it all in one day if I give in to fears, doubts, pressures, temptations, weaknesses and low faith and confidence in the Lord who has brought me this far.

God inspires us with examples of deliverance and victory against impossible odds from scripture and our contemporary life. The Lord inspires us with His Word. He inspires us with the power of the Holy Spirit. He inspires us through prayer. No one can stop His promise to us from being fulfilled. We can defeat or slay any giant. We need not be deterred by their great size or prowess. We are GI-ants and our power is just as great as our faith makes it to be. We are to be “Eschol” or extraordinarily productive and brave. We need to be optimistic and confident like Caleb and Joshua who were the two lone men who stood by Moses and said that it was possible to take the land from its current possessors. They recalled the mighty wonders the Lord had done to deliver them in Egypt and along their long course back to the promised land. Our faith should enable us to jump like grasshoppers from one level to another in our walk with the Lord and in our accomplishments in His Name. When others look at us , they will see very ordinary and vulnerable persons but they do not suspect the hidden amazing and awesome power of the Lord at work in us, through us and around us. We see ourselves not with the esteem of others or of our own esteem but with the esteem of the Lord. We see ourselves as God sees us as “mighty warriors and people of great valour.”

Prateep V Philip