Living in a Land full of Giants

I have a document on my computer called “Ideas”. Something I started after my stroke. One way to deal with my memory woes is to write things down. How original is that? Some of the ideas that are listed came from my daily bible reading. Some of them came while I was dealing with my recovery. Some of them came from just living my life. They are things that I want to think about, or maybe write about. It amazes me how writing about things clarifies my thoughts. I think I am thinking differently. It’s like I’m thinking on paper.

But as I look at the list, I can see a theme, and it is sort of discouraging. The theme that I see is obstacles in my life that came from the stroke. I realize that has been my focus. Maybe focus isn’t the right word. But unconsciously it has been lurking around and it has been affecting everything. I realize that there were always obstacles in my life. But after my stroke they became more apparent and overcoming them is what I have been focusing on. I guess that is where I’m at, the shoe fits. 

I get that overcoming obstacles is important, but I don’t want to just focus on the obstacles, I want to focus on what lies beyond. Along with that, there are obstacles that I can’t overcome. Focusing on things that can’t be overcome creates a somber depressing vibe.  

It is easier to write, and think, about things I am good at. My last post about overcoming and pressing on was easy to write, oops, it was actually hard to write, figuring out the words is still brutal. But it was easy to think about. The idea of “pressing on” has been part of my worldview before I knew I had a worldview. It was in my wheel house. Thinking outside my wheel house is harder to do, but maybe more productive. So this post is about something that I’m not very good at. It is not about pressing on and overcoming, but trusting that God has this, and following him. 

Pressing on and overcoming, both lean forward toward the idea of self-actualization, reliance on your strengths, and self-preservation. But on the other side of the coin is the idea of trusting and following. God wants us to press on and he wants us to trust him and follow him.  It’s sort of a weird dichotomy. And I realize the “press on” side of my coin has been facing up. 

One of the things I wrote in my list was killing giants. Killing giants, is that a thing? I wrote it three years ago and it sat there on the list. You might think the idea came from the story about David and Goliath. Duh, right. David kills the giant. Overcoming the obstacles in front of him. Yea for David!  That was what I was planning to write about, overcoming giants.

This is the illustration that AI recommended. Whoo Hoo, facing down a giant.

The problem is it is artificial. Facing down a giant isn’t something I can do. I realize there are things I can’t overcome. I’m not like David.

But that idea didn’t originate with that story. It came from a sort of random verse about what happened in the days of Abraham. How verses will stand out for me is sort of weird. It was something that Moses said as he encouraged the Israelite to enter the land again. He was talking about something that had happened generations ago. Something that had happened before the Israelites even existed. He was talking about what happened when the descendants of Lot (the Ammonites) came to live in a land that was known as a land of giants. There was actually a race of giants. They are mentioned numerous times in the Bible, they are also mentioned in Egyptian history.  How they came to be is not known, but giants were there. Anyways, here is the verse that created the thought that became a thing on my list of ideas.

The land of Ammon was also regarded as a land of giants; giants formerly dwelt there. But the Ammonites call them Zamzummim, a people as great and numerous and tall as the Anakim. But the Lord destroyed them before them, and they dispossessed them and dwelt in their place. Deuteronomy 2:20-21

I like that the verse doesn’t say “you guys need to overcome them” but that “God destroyed them.” God destroyed the giants that lived there, God destroyed them. And the Ammonites dwelt in their place. So Moses reminded them what God did for the Ammonites. Moses reminded them as they were entering the land again. Again? What happened the first time? They chickened out. 

As the Israelites came the first time to the border of the land that God promised them, they sent spies to check it out, and they gave this report. 

The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight” Numbers 13:32-33

Giants were there as well. As a result, ten of the twelve men that spied out the land gave a bad report. The two spies that disagreed with the negative report, Joshua and Caleb, saw the beauty of the land and said let’s go get it, unfortunately they were outvoted.  After rejecting the land that God offered them, they wander in the wilderness for forty years, until another generation replaces them. That happened because they were afraid of giants. 

Nothing had changed in the land during the forty years that they wandered through the wilderness, giants still lived there. So Moses told the Israelites the story about how God destroyed the giants. It makes sense, Moses was reminding Israelites what God did to the giants who lived in the land.

Or maybe those verses were to remind me what God will do to the giants who live in my land. That is profound to me as I think about my “giants”, things that are overwhelming, things that are bigger than me, things I don’t want to face, things I can’t overcome.  It is easy to think about the Israelites and the giants who lived in the promised land as a story in the bible. It’s something entirely different to think about if I have turned away from what God wanted for my life, the promises he has for me, because I was afraid of the “giants” in the land.    

I guess that’s my prayer. God can you destroy my giants. And He says, follow me.

The Israelites did not discover the promised land, they were led there. But when they arrived there were giants, and rather than trusting that the promise God gave them would actually happen, they ended up dying in the wilderness.

Sometimes it feels like I’m wandering in the wilderness instead of living in the “promised land” because I’m living in fear of the giants. But God wants me to live in their place, to possess the land, and he does not require me to overcome them. He wants me to follow him as he destroys them.

I realize that it isn’t so much about overcoming obstacles, more like overcoming my fear. I don’t want to live in fear of the giants in my life. God will get rid of my obstacles, or lead me around them. God will do the heavy lifting. I just need to trust him and follow him. 

“Press on” is in my DNA. I’m pressing on as much as I can. But there are giants around me. Well, God led me here, this place with giants, and I am trusting him to do the heavy lifting. 

I’m turning the coin over to the “trust and follow me” side.