Article October 31, 1977 Issue

About Grasshoppers

Evelyn M. Pinnell

Did you ever feel very small and believe that other people felt the same way about you? Well, over three thousand years ago there were some people feeling just like that who described it as being "grasshoppers" in their own sight. But Caleb didn't feel that way. He lived at the time when Moses was leading the children of Israel to Canaan, the Promised Land. Moses sent him with eleven other men to spy out Canaan to see if it could be occupied.

When the spies returned, they told Moses that Canaan was a land flowing with milk and honey, and there were figs, pomegranates, and grapes there. They brought back some to show Moses and the people. But they said, "The cities are walled, and very great." And they described the men who lived there as being very tall and strong—like giants. And to top if off they told Moses, "We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." Num. 13:28, 33; They evidently needed to know they were children of God. Everybody is a child of God. Nobody is a grasshopper!

But giants didn't worry Caleb. He and another man called Joshua said, "If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land." 14:8; And Moses listened to Caleb, who had listened to God. But most of the men thought they were like grasshoppers and were afraid, so it was many years before they went back to Canaan to live. Caleb, who "wholly followed the Lord," Deut. 1:36; was given a special portion of land as a reward. As the Bible says, "God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." II Tim. 1:7; So when we face giant problems, let us remember what kind of spirit God, good, has given to us—the same spirit that Christ Jesus expressed and that filled him with great power.

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