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What's Your Report?

When the twelve spies checked out the Promised Land, only two of them came back with a good report. Those two were Joshua and Caleb. The other ten spies saw only the negative and returned with what the Bible calls an "evil report" (Numbers 13:32).

Let's read the account from THE MESSAGE translation:

"After forty days of scouting out the land, they returned home. They presented themselves before Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation of the People of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They reported to the whole congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.

Then they told the story of their trip: 'We went to the land to which you sent us and, oh! It does flow with milk and honey! Just look at this fruit! The only thing is that the people who live there are fierce, their cities are huge and well fortified. Worse yet, we saw descendants of the giant Anak. Amalekites are spread out in the Negev; Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites hold the hill country; and the Canaanites are established on the Mediterranean Sea and along the Jordan.'

Caleb interrupted, called for silence before Moses and said, "Let's go up and take the land—now. We can do it.

But the others said, "We can't attack those people; they're way stronger than we are.'

They spread scary rumors among the People of Israel. They said, 'We scouted out the land from one end to the other—it's a land that swallows people whole. Everybody we saw was huge. Why, we even saw the Nephilim giants (the Anak giants come from the Nephilim). Alongside them we felt like grasshoppers. And they looked down on us as if we were grasshoppers.'

The account goes on to tell that, because of their unbelief, that generation of Israelites never entered the Promised Land. But Joshua and Caleb who believed God did enter in and possess the land.

As God's writer, you have a Promised Land. It's called Publication. How do I know? Because God commanded us to publish His message:

Psalm 68:11 - "The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it" (Psalm 68:11).

Jeremiah 50:2 - "Declare ye among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and conceal not."

If God has commanded us to publish His message, then He will provide the means for us to publish it. But just as the Israelites had giants to face and overcome, so do we. Our giants are unbelief, doubt, fear, laziness, lack of discipline, procrastination, and a whole host of other things that cause us to focus on ourselves instead of on God.

The question is, "Are we going to believe that God has already equipped us to kill the giants? Or, like the Israelites, are we going to believe the evil report?"

Your answer will determine whether you fulfill your writing destiny or whether you "die in the desert".

And that's my "musing that matters for today". What's yours? :)

Blessings,

MaryAnn

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Copyright 2007 by MaryAnn Diorio, Ph.D. All rights reserved. This blog entry may NOT be reproduced, reprinted, or published in any form whatsoever without the written permission of Dr. MaryAnn Diorio. You may, however, forward it to others, but please do so IN ITS ENTIRETY. Thank you for your cooperation.

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