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“Don’t tell God how big your storm is; tell the storm how big your God is”.

I’m sure many of you have heard that statement as a motivational tool, whether in a sermon at your church or on your friend’s Facebook page as you were scrolling through. You could replace the word “storm” with “giant” or “fear” or anything else that seems to be standing in the way of you walking the journey that God has set before you. It may be a medical diagnosis that you or someone close to you has recently received. It may be the loss of a job that you and your family were counting on for financial stability. It may be the fact that you know God is calling you to do something that seems extremely difficult bordering on impossible.

I believe that one of the biggest “giants” that stand in the way for many of us is THE PAST. I’ve had the opportunity through my places of employment over the last few years to get to know several men who were living as slaves to their pasts. They are men who had moments of surrender to the Lord and began to make more God-honoring choices in their everyday lives, only to eventually hit a wall that seemed unbreakable in their eyes. These men had built for themselves a skyscraper of consequences from their past sins and those committed against them, and the odds of them overcoming the past seemed insurmountable. I’m talking about men who owe many years and many thousands of dollars in backed up child support. I’m talking about men who are haunted by what others have done to them and what they’ve done to others. And I’m talking about addicts who have had moments of clarity where they knew they no longer “needed” that substance, only to get back to a point where they saw it as the only way to deal with the pain and regret of the past.

While I can’t say I’ve ever been to the point of the men I described above, I can admit that I have been tempted to believe lies about myself based on my sinful past. If I didn’t have men in my life who constantly prayed for me and reassured me that God views me according to what Christ has done for me and not my mistakes, I may have continued in those mistakes and surrendered to them and decided that there was no other way for me to live. Fortunately, I did not lose sight of how big my God is and, with the help of others, I was able to view my past and the other “storms” and “giants” in my life as mere “grasshoppers” compared to the His greatness.

You are probably wondering at this point why I am talking about grasshoppers. Did you know that the grasshopper is referenced in the Bible? It’s actually referenced many times in the Old Testament, one of my favorites of which is in the Book of Numbers. Let me set it up for you. The Israelites were pretty much at the end of their journey to the Promised Land. The Lord had miraculously fed them, battled for them, and led them on the entire journey. In Numbers 13:1, he tells Moses to “send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites”. God already knew what they would find once they explored, so it was an obvious test of their faith and trust in Him.

Moses then sent twelve leaders, one from each Israelite tribe, to explore the land for forty days and then bring back a report to the whole Israelite camp. The report they brought back was partially positive in that they confirmed that it “flows with milk and honey” and bears good fruit, but the report’s pessimism outweighed anything positive that it had to say. They said that “the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large”, and also that they “saw descendants of Anak there” (13:28). After Caleb, one of the men who had explored the land, tried to motivate the people to press on anyway and take possession of the land, the other reporters continued to warn the people of what was awaiting them. “We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them” (13:33).

Let me ask you an obvious question. How in the world could the reporters have known what they looked like in the eyes of the Nephilim? For all they knew, God could have put the fear of the Israelites into the minds of the Nephilim. My point in bringing that up is that the real problem here is not that the Nephilim looked down at the Israelite leaders, but that the Israelite leaders looked up at the Nephilim. They VIEWED THEMSELVES as tiny grasshoppers compared to these giants. Thus, they were defeated before they ever even began the battle. Instead of considering the facts that God was leading them, that He is more than able to accomplish His will, and that His greatness reduces all who come against Him to nothing more than “grasshoppers”, they allowed their fears that were based on sight to suppress their faith.

I’d love to tell you that somebody gave a great motivational speech that caused the people to come to their senses and push forward into the Promised Land. But that isn’t what happened. Caleb and Joshua, whose name by the way comes from the same root as that of Jesus, did stand up and give the motivational speech. They focused on the fact that the Lord was with them, and that there was nothing to fear. “Do not be afraid of the people of the land because we will swallow them up. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them” (14:9). However, the people continued to complain and even talked about stoning Caleb and Joshua. Moses then successfully pleads to the Lord for forgiveness of the people, but the Lord still declares that their consequence will be that they will not enter the Promised Land (14:29-30). God then struck down with a plague those who spread the fear with their report (14:37). Later, even after Moses told the rest of the Israelites who believed the original report that God would not allow them to enter the Promised Land because of their lack of faith, they assumed God would protect them anyway and entered the land, where they were destroyed (14:45).

The story of Caleb and Joshua and the rest of the leaders who explored the land and brought a report back to the people is definitely one of my favorites in the Bible. I encourage you to read Numbers 13 and 14 in their entirety. If you don’t believe that God is real, then you have every reason to fear each and every “giant” that stands in your way. But, for those of you who claim to be followers of Christ and believers in the Almighty God, this is where it is most crucial in your lives. Friends, if we don’t believe that every single “giant” or “storm” in our lives is a mere grasshopper compared to the God we serve, what’s the point in worshipping Him? Belief that He is Almighty as He says is the ENTIRE reason why we should be moved by fear of disobeying Him and moved by faith to do the great things to which He has called us. What great thing has He promised you or called you to that is currently blocked by “giants”? Is it overcoming an addiction? Is it climbing out of the hole that your past has created for you? Is it forgiving someone who has hurt you? Maybe it’s leaving what is comfortable to serve Him in a new way or a new place. I can assure you that, if God has promised you something in the Scriptures and approves of your goal, whatever stands in your way is nothing more than a grasshopper. Don’t tell God how big your “Nephilim” are; tell your “Nephilim” how big your God is!