Today’s lesson is How to Fail. 

Here is a mere simple thought
Do not go where God is not

Read Numbers 13 and 14 for full context. God told Moses to “Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders,” (13:1, 2). 

Moses did as he was told. He gave the explorers a mission from God:

They did what they were told and experienced significant success (13:21-25). The first part of their report was very good:

“We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit,” (13:27). 

The second part was not so good: 

“But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. 29 The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan,” (verses 28, 29).

Long story short, “We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them,” (verse 33). 

What to do, what to do?

Someone came up with a plan: “And they said to each other, ‘We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt,” (14:4). 

Let us pause and remember what we have seen again and again since Genesis 1: Where God guides, God provides. Joshua and Caleb, the hardiest of the Twelve Explorers said, “If the LORD is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us,” (verse 8). 

The people were ready to stone to death Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Caleb and anyone else who trusted God (verse 10). Then God showed up. His sleeves were rolled up and his fists were clenched. (This dramatic language is a paraphrase.) He wanted to kill everyone but Moses and start all over with him. What did the Most Humble Man Who Ever Lived (12:3) say to that?

You can read his prayer in verses 13-19. Moses reminded God of what he had already promised. He appealed to God’s great love. He asked God to forgive them (again). 

Herein is a prayer lesson. Give God a reason to say yes to your prayer requests. Remind God (and yourself) of his promises and his purpose. Align yourself with God, his promises, and his purpose. Seek his highest and best not only for yourself but for everyone else as well.

There is so much more good content in this chapter. Do make time to read it. 

God told Moses to start leading in the direction from which they had come. Some people decided, however, that delayed obedience was as good as immediate obedience and launched out in the direction the Twelve Explorers had come from with the nice big cluster of grapes. 

Moses warned them: 

Can you predict what happened next? Verses 44 and 45 tell us of their great failure. Where God does not guide, God does not provide. 

Here are straightforward lessons for people like us.
1. Where God guides, God provides.
2. Immediate obedience leads to success.
3. Delayed obedience is disobedience. 
4. Do not go where God is not. 

Moses discovered early on how doing God’s will his way is not what God means when he calls us to obey. See Exodus 2:11 and following for the rest of the story. Doing God’s will our way is one sure way to fail. Missing God’s opportune moment is another way to fail. 

God said, “Go.” 
    The people said, “No.” 
The people said, “Okay, we’ll go.” 
    God said, “Not now, no.”

Maybe today you and I have not learned how to fail. Maybe we are already pretty good at that. Remedial lessons are unnecessary. Maybe, however, we have learned how to diagnose our failures and have discovered how to prevent them as we move forward more intelligently. 

Our greatest success, 
the only success worth knowing, 
is when we say yes 
to where God is going. 

We have hereby learned how to succeed in life.