Let me first start by saying that this post is more about thinking out loud than presenting any dogmatic theological view. I was reading through part of the book of Numbers again when I came across this verse:
Numbers 13:2- "send some men to explore the land of Cannan .......from each ancestral tribe send one of it's leaders."
The people of God were living in a moment were "karios" and "chronos" were coming together, they were moving toward their prophetic moment. It was at this time the people of God were confronted with two reports from their leaders. Which caused me to wonder, can you have the right leader at the wrong time and the wrong leaders at the right time? These were the leaders chosen but there report (minus caleb and joshua) turned what should have been a season of victory, promise, conquest and kingdom expansion into a hold the fort, lets discuss this a little longer, Yes we believe what God said is true but we don't know if its really for us, now. So this report caused weeping (num 14) and those tearful seeds of fear and unbelief led to a harvest of 40 more years of wilderness wondering.
No doubt, even today we live in such a time when the prayer,"on earth as it is in heaven," looks to be a heavenly idea than and earthly reality but the pray Jesus gave, the will of God has not changed. Among the people of God there seems to be voices again rising which conflict and collide with one another, two varying reports. One shouting that these are our best days, move forward, kingdom expansion, we can take it and the others which desire to hold the fort, hang on in the wilderness and pray for a miraculous rescue. The one looks at society and culture and see's the greatest opportunity for revival while the other eagerly pulls back because they see know real chance at change, "it will get worse before it gets better." Which voice moves us? How do we view our world? Do we believe we can take it for Jesus? Do we have wrong leaders at the right time in history? These are just questions that come to mind as I look at their folly in fulfilling their moment in history and praying I do not the same.
What would make these leaders so full of unbelief, fear which would lead to their folly and failure? Shawshank. What? Weird? Yes, but hear me out for just a moment. Shawshank was a prison in the movie "shawshank redemption," which by the way was an amazing movie. People didn't escape this prison and it was hard time. There was a old prisoner named "brooks" who was a nice old man who lived his whole life there it seemed and then one day he got patrolled. This new freedom was to much for brooks, bondage had institutionalized him. First they hate it, then they get used to it. Pretty soon it gets so that they depend on it. They are no able longer to fully function in the outside world. That's institutionalized....like Brooks. The leaders who were with Moses had just came out of a lifetime of bondage, strict structure. Many of these leaders that followed Moses would no doubt in modern terms, be considered institutionalized. In this environment, this structure they could flourish and lead but with this new freedom, new assignment, new land??
You can't go into the promise land with a wilderness or bondage mentality. When shawshank and canaan collided shawshank won but just like on the movie there were some victorious souls, I forget their names? Joshua and caleb lol. As leaders we must continually have our paradigms pushed, stretched and even shattered depending on the season of the Lord. If our theology is already all figured out and God formulated, when it comes time for a new move or a transition we could become a hinderance instead of a catalyst, I just don't want to be a wrong leader at the right time.
