Hey Clawson Family!

Song:

Scripture:

Joshua 1:9 NLT

9 This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Devotional:

In Numbers 13, we see the 10 spies give the report to Moses and Arron. They said, the land is beautiful! But the people there are powerful and the cities are fortified. We even saw Giants!

Caleb says Let’s go in and take it! When Caleb says this, the thought of that scares them so much that here is what they begin to spread the fear of what they believed they saw to the people of Israel. 

They told them things like, “That land will devour anyone who goes to live there. All the people we saw were huge.” “Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!”

This is what fear does to us when we allow it to paralyze our minds. They could not see in reality, and walk in faith because they were too busy allowing fear to paint a picture in their minds of what could happen.

What was their reality? The reality is that God had already taken on the Egyptians for them, who were the most powerful people in the world. God had split the red sea, He fed them from heaven, He gave them water out of a rock, He had led them this whole way! Now they arrive at the land He promised and the reality was that God was going to give them that land. God was so much more powerful than those people. The reality was that God told them to take the land and that he would provide.

But because of fear they couldn't see that! Because fear often does not see things as they are but as we are.

When you get to the door on the airplane and get ready to jump out a lot of times fear tries to stop you from taking that leap. Fear causes you to not see thing as they are, but as you are.

Your thought is I am going to  die. The reality is that you have better chances of getting bit by shark, or killed in a car crash then you have dying in a skydive accident. Yet you swim in the ocean and ride in a Car. If you don’t believe me, in 2023 around 3,650,000 skydived in the US, and 10 civilians died. And out of those 10 only a few of those were Tandem skydiving. Mathematically speaking, the odds of a tandem skydiving death 0.0002%. That is the reality. Yet when we are at the door fear is causing us not to see things as they are, but as we are.

Journal:

 In your journal write down  one step you can take today to move forward in the pursuit of God’s will, no matter how frightening it may look!

Training:

Dear Lord, 

You see my heart, and You know what fear I’m facing in my own life right now. Please help me to be strong and courageous in the promise of Your presence. Grant me the holy boldness of Your Spirit to trust in Your unfailing love and to take the next step in faith that moves me forward.

 In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Write down your favorite scripture and display it for a constant reminder of the Lord’s presence with you!