“Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Send out men for yourself to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am going to give the sons of Israel; you shall send a man from each of their fathers’ tribes, every one a leader among them.” Numbers 13:1-2

Moses and millions of Israelites are currently homeless living in the wilderness. They have left Egypt and are looking for the promised land. So God asked Moses to send out 12 men –one honorable man from each tribe. They were to spy out this land on a 40 day research project and give persuasive speeches to the whole congregation on their findings.

Have you ever thought about how your trust in something changes your perspective on something? For example, when all 12 men came back, they came back in two perspective groups. Each group had a likely true, but different description of the land. Numbers 14: 36-38 shares about these sets of men; “As for the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, and who returned and led all the congregation to grumble against him by bringing a bad report about the land, those men who brought the bad report of the land also died by a plague in the presence of the Lord. But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive out of those men who went to spy out the land.”

Out of 12 men only two men had a perspective that pleased the Lord. Those two men trusted the Lord, believed that He was good, and that a favorable outcome would happen in the new land. The other ten men assumed the worst about God and openly complained about it. Those 10 men probably felt like they were honestly giving the ugly truth but in reality they were influencing others in their mistrust. What we can learn from Joshua and Calab is their trust in the Lord affected their perspective and that perspective affected their realities. Through their trust they did not influence through complaints but spoke life.