Tip of My Iceberg

I don’t understand the excitement over Ring Pops.

Granted, they’re sugary, easy to carry, ring-around-a-finger kind of candy. And for those who love lollipops, they’re a fine alternative. I’ve always seen them as a means to migrate stickiness from the mouth to the fingers to the clothes.

I never liked lollipops.

Kids, however, love them. When we were in Wisconsin, I picked up several from a booth that was closing down, thinking several littles would enjoy the tasty, if not obnoxiously sticky, treats. When it was time to leave, I gave several to Debbie so Kolly would have something to occupy her during take- off and landing.

She was lulled into calmness with sugar. It sounds a little counterintuitive.

We all long for sweet spots where we feel confident that things will go as we anticipated, and that we won’t be caught off guard by the unexpected. We want that sweet space, where life is as we think it should be, with no surprises. That rarely is how situations play out.

When Moses and the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they were approaching the place God had promised them, the land of Canaan. God had Moses gather twelve men, one from each of the tribes of Israel, to spy out the land to see what it was like as far as farming, and to find out if the people were weak or strong.

Upon returning from their sojourn in the country, they brought back with them bountiful fruit, saying the land was perfect for growing things.

Two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, were confident that they could take the land, as God had promised. However, the other ten were fearful because the people seemed bigger and stronger than their army.

“‘We can’t go up against them! They are stronger than we are!’ So the 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. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!’” Numbers 13:31-33.

Their fear angered God. He had promised He’d give the land to His people, and all the people wanted to do was choose a new leader and head back to Egypt. Joshua and Caleb tried to talk the rebels into seeing that God had a better plan, but fear kept them from believing Him. God was angry enough to disown this people, but Moses stood in the gap for them, asking God to pardon the people because of His unfailing love.

The Lord did as Moses asked, but the people would still experience the consequences of their faithlessness. Because the spies explored the land for forty days, the people would wander in the wilderness for a year for each day. He added one more promise: “They will never even see the land I swore to give their ancestors. None of those who have treated Me with contempt will ever see it.” Numbers 14:23. For the next forty years, all who were alive at this time would die in the wilderness; their sons and daughters born on their journey would be the ones who would enter the promised land.

Kolly allowed the sweetness of the Ring Pop to divert her attention from the plane taking off and landing. What the children of Israel failed to see was the sweetness of the Lord’s promise; He said He would provide for them to conquer the land of Canaan, but they didn’t believe Him. Their lack of faith became bitterness to them. None of those who came out of Egypt in the exodus, except Joshua and Caleb, would ever see the Promised Land.

What sweet promise is God offering you that you’re hesitant to take?