Faith

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Our school's athletic director texted me early one morning this week asking me to bring our family's humidifier with me to the gym when I came in that day. He's allowed to text me early, at home, because he's pretty cute, nicely built, and we work well together running the athletics at our school--oh, and by the way, he's my husband. :)

I hadn't quite made it out the door yet when Ben, who was already at school, texted. I thought the request a bit strange, but since he's also a middle school math and science teacher, I thought perhaps he had some strange lab experiment going on with the students that he needed the humidifier for.

So, I tugged it out of its cranny under our bathroom sink where it had been resting for years, threw it in the car, and off we went to school.

Now, our humidifier is small--room-sized. It was used to comfort our wee ones when they were much more wee and had stuffy noses. This is no industrialized-sized, pumping-galloons-of-water-out-per-second mega-machine. So you can imagine my surprise when Ben met me in the gym and told me what he intended to use it for.

My amazing husband, among the dozens of other hats he wears, also garnishes a coaching fedora--usually worn 9 months out of the year and often with more than one team simultaneously balanced on top. As I write, he is juggling about 35 fourth through sixth grade boys and girls on two different basketball teams. Ben is dedicated. He cares about his students/athletes. He often doesn't sleep well after practices or games because his mind is racing about all the things he could improve or which athletes could run different plays. I respect him greatly. And he has taught me how to be a three-peat conference champion coach. I owe all coaching success to him, second only to Jesus.

So when he told me he wanted to use our teeny humidified to pump water into our gym, I was, only for a second, wondering if the lack of sleep had finally taken its toll on him. Living in the South, we don't often--meaning never--have to stew over being dry. Being sweaty is just a way of life. The humidity creates an adhesion that forms between our gym floor and sneakers. But on the rare occasions that our constant vapor cloud lifts, our gym floor doesn't much care for it. It transforms from sandpaper to a glacier. Okay, maybe not glacier, but it does become more slippery. A few days recently, we have been gym-skiiing instead of gym-"quick sanding". And that's not great when important basketball games are on the schedule. Ben wanted to pump water into the gym to bring the adhesion back, and the occasional floor boogies deposited randomly on the floor by our half-pint students just weren't enough to make the sneakers stick. ( :) Just kidding; kind of...I do think deposits are left at times, but our amazing custodians keep us cleaned up.) I trust Ben. So, I told him, let's go for it.

True to its weather nature, our neck of the woods didn't stay dry long, so our compact humidifier never got a workout. Perhaps we can test Ben's experiment another time. But Jesus has been teaching me about another type of adhesion lately.

We all face trials, problems, giants. They may be comparatively small or they may be life-altering. Moses and the Israelites were facing literal giants as the twelve spies explored the promised land. Ten of them came back to report to Moses (and all the people) that there was no way God's chosen could take over the land because of the multitude standing in the way; the multitude also happened to include giants.

Numbers 14: 1-4: "Then the whole community began weeping aloud, and they cried all night. 2 Their voices rose in a great chorus of protest against Moses and Aaron. 'If only we had died in Egypt, or even here in the wilderness!' they complained. 3 'Why is the Lord taking us to this country only to have us die in battle? Our wives and our little ones will be carried off as plunder! Wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt?' 4 Then they plotted among themselves, 'Let’s choose a new leader and go back to Egypt!'”

Most of God's chosen focused on the obstacles, the trials, the giants, the hard work ahead. They were willing to trade God's promise, His gift, their freedom and future for slavery and a life of misery back in Egypt. Not only did they focus on these but they promulgated their corruptive negativity to all the people. Misery loves company.

Numbers 13: 32-33: "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!'”

Only two spies, Joshua and Caleb, had hope.

Numbers 14:7-9 continues, "They said to all the people of Israel, 'The land we traveled through and explored is a wonderful land! 8 And if the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us safely into that land and give it to us. It is a rich land flowing with milk and honey. 9 Do not rebel against the Lord, and don’t be afraid of the people of the land. They are only helpless prey to us! They have no protection, but the Lord is with us! Don’t be afraid of them!'”

Joshua and Caleb saw and experienced the same multitude, the same giants, the same physical attributes of the land, and the same obstacles and trials as the other ten spies. But only those two focused on, adhered to, THE Hope, the Answer, their Lord. The others adhered to the problems, the giants.

And only two spies lived to see the promise fulfilled.

Numbers 14:27-30: “'How long must I put up with this wicked community and its complaints about me? Yes, I have heard the complaints the Israelites are making against me. 28 Now [Moses] tell them this: 'As surely as I live, declares the Lord, I will do to you the very things I heard you say. 29 You will all drop dead in this wilderness! Because you complained against me, every one of you who is twenty years old or older and was included in the registration will die. 30 You will not enter and occupy the land I swore to give you. The only exceptions will be Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun."'"

God kept His promise to give His people the land, but there were severe consequences for the Israelites who focused on the problem instead of the promise.

Not only does adhering to the wrong focal point cause missing out on God' joy and peace and blessings, but it also doesn't give Him the glory. What kind of a witness to other nations around them were the Israelites when they claimed they were God followers but clung to the giants and were bound to them in slavery. God had performed repeated miracles for the Israelites to show them He could be trusted. He parted the Red Sea, He caused manna to fall from the sky, He provided quails after they grew tired of the taste of manna, He was a literal fire and cloud that led them in their travels, He spoke and gave them His commandments, He rescued them out of a torturous life of bondage. Yet, they still focused on the obstacles instead of the character and the faithfulness of God their Creator. Yes, God was faithful to them, but why did they choose bondage to worry over freedom in the promised land?

The same can be asked of us. Why do we adhere to obstacles, trials, giants in our path instead of the loving, faithful character of our Jesus? What witness to God's glory are we being when the world around us sees us focusing on doubting? That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be "real". It doesn't mean that we don't share our trials. It doesn't mean that life in Jesus is perfect and carefree. It does mean that we as Jesus followers decide to adhere to, cling to the only One who gives life and a future. It means that we trust that the One who has called us is faithful and that He will do it (1 Thessalonians 5:24). It means that we are, at appropriate times, transparent to those watching and, yes share our trials, and even more, point them to the One who will accomplish what concerns me (Psalm 138:8). "Behold, the Lord’s hand is not so short that it cannot save; nor is His ear so dull that it cannot hear." (Isaiah 59:1)

When we adhere, particles of what we adhere to transfer to us. A perfect example of this is when factories place a price tag on merchandise only to have it refuse to come off after the item is sold. And inevitably, a portion of the product comes off with the tag.

What we choose to stick to matters. Ben wanted to use our humidifier so our athletes' sneakers would stick to our floor to prevent injuries from slipping and falling. We DON'T want our fans sticking to old, spilled soda and candy left on the bleachers--which by the way is also prevented by of our extremely dedicated custodians.

We decide to stick to Jesus and trust that He is faithful.

"When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you." (Isaiah 43:2)

When we bond to our God, His fruit of peace is bound to transfer to us the longer we are fixed to Him and keep our eyes on Him. In contrast, we don't want to adhere to the giants in our life. Worry, overwhelming fear, and a sense of impeding doom is not what we want transferred to us.

And, praise God, He is faithful to forgive us when we confess to Him that at times we choose to stick to the giants instead of to Him.

Look at, cling to, adhere to Jesus; not the giants. "I listen carefully to what God the Lord is saying, for he speaks peace to his faithful people. But let them not return to their foolish ways." (Psalm 85:8)

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