In the morning, my father and the other nine naysayers among the twelve spies were found dead on their pallets. I helped bury him that day, then shouldered my pack and prepared to begin this journey with no destination.

    Invisible walls had grown overnight, dividing parent and child. Together, yet alone, we faced the hot winds as we were led mercilessly away from Canaan’s borders. We would learn to live with death.

---

    I STOOD on the banks of the Jordan at last, watching with tears as the Levites bore the Ark across the dry riverbed. My sons and grandsons stood beside me. I suppose they thought I wept for joy at the crossing into Canaan, and I did…but I also wept for my father, who was unable to believe in this day.

    Once humiliated by his sin, I had come face to face with my own iniquity, too late regretting the proud words with which I had flayed him on his last day. So soon I saw people my age defile themselves with the whores of Moab, seduced by Balaam’s sorcery into lustful disobedience. No generation is immune from poor choices.

    But I also witnessed faith in the wilderness. Joshua and Caleb had seemed immune to the ravages of those years. Other men and women shriveled and perished, but these two became hardier, tougher. They drew sustenance and strength from a never-failing source. They could walk as far, see as keenly, fight as hard as any man my age.

    Led by the example of these two grasshoppers, we would enter the land…and take it.

HEARTLIGHT(R) Magazine is a ministry of loving Christians and the Westover Hills church of Christ.
Edited by Phil Ware and Paul Lee.
Copyright © 1996-97, Heartlight, Inc., 8332 Mesa Drive, Austin, TX 78759.
The preceding was taken from the book, Destiny by Choice by Thom Lemmons. Used by permission.
Design copyright © 1997, Heartlight, Inc., 8332 Mesa Drive, Austin, TX 78759.
May be reprinted and reused for non-commercial purposes only if copyright credits are appropriately displayed.
HEARTLIGHT and the flared heart design are service marks of Heartlight, Inc.