“After exploring the land for forty days, the men returned to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community of Israel at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran. They reported to the whole community what they had seen and showed them the fruit they had taken from the land. This was their report to Moses: “We entered the land you sent us to explore, and it is indeed a bountiful country—a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is the kind of fruit it produces.  But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak! The Amalekites live in the Negev, and the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country. The Canaanites live along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and along the Jordan Valley.”

But Caleb tried to quiet the people as they stood before Moses. “Let’s go at once to take the land,” he said. “We can certainly conquer it!”

 But the other men who had explored the land with him disagreed. “We can’t go up against them! They are stronger than we are!”  So they spread this bad report about the land among the Israelites: “The land we traveled through and explored will devour anyone who goes to live there. All the people we saw were huge.  We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!”

 Then the whole community began weeping aloud, and they cried all night. Their voices rose in a great chorus of protest against Moses and Aaron. “If only we had died in Egypt, or even here in the wilderness!” they complained. “Why is the Lord taking us to this country only to have us die in battle? Our wives and our little ones will be carried off as plunder! Wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt?”  Then they plotted among themselves, “Let’s choose a new leader and go back to Egypt!”
Numbers 13:25- 14:1

As a therapist, the biggest thing I see in session with someone is narratives. What is a narrative? I am glad you asked.
In psychology, a narrative is a structured story individuals construct to organize experiences, create meaning, and define their identity. It involves linking events across time to establish personal significance. Narrative psychology explores how these stories shape behavior, emotions, as well as self and world-view.
In grad school, as a counseling psychology student, you are taught the variety of “schools of thought” or modalities that each student will choose in their practice of being therapists.
I was never one who loved the idea of sticking to one school of thought and even now I pull from all the modalities in order to help my clients but, if I look at the way I approach clients I can say confidently that I sit primary in the Narrative Therapy seat. And, through reading and studying the word of God I am confident that changing the narrative is how the Lord renews our mind in a lot of ways.

Lets look at the scripture I added at the beginning of this post. Little recap for those who don’t know this part of history: The Israelites were slaves in Egypt for around 430 years. God sent Moses to set the Israelites free from Pharaoh. God did miraculous things in order to set the people free, including parting an entire sea and drying up the ground under the water so the Israelites could escape the Egyptians. The Israelites saw miracle, after miracle, after miracle and God spoke through Moses giving them promises for the future. He gave this promise to Moses through a BURNING BUSH that didn’t burn up and God spoke through the bush (WHHHATTT) He promised a land flowing with milk and honey but He also didn’t forget to mention there were already people there (Exodus 3.)
God said to Moses “I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries of distress because of their harsh slave drivers. Yes, I am aware of their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt into their own fertile and spacious land. It is a land flowing with milk and honey—the land where the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites now live.” Exodus 3:7-8

So now, in the passage in Numbers that we read at first, they are FINALLY at the promise land! Something that they have been waiting for and that God has promised them! But, lets not forget this part. God promised them land, He TELLS them that there are people living there, He promises to be with them every step of the way, AND He has shown his unmatchable power over and over and over and over.

So, in Numbers 13, God says to Moses “Send out men to explore the land of Canaan, the land I am giving to the Israelites. Send one leader from each of the twelve tribes.”
That was it, those were his only instructions right?
Now listen to what Moses tells them to do.
“Moses gave the men these instructions as he sent them out to explore the land: “see what the land is like, and find out whether the people living there are strong or weak, few or many, see what kind of land they live in, is it good or bad? Do their towns have walls, or are they unprotected like open camps? is the soil fertile or poor? are there many tress? .”
That was A LOT more instruction than what God asked Moses to do AND it set up the Israelites minds to COMPARE.
God has already told them that He is GIVING them the land and that it is flowing with milk and honey but with Moses’s instructions the people are going to gain information, seek out the “negative” parts of the land, AND assess the size and strength of the people living there.

Then we come to chapter 13 verses 25-33 and chapter 14 verses 1-3.

The scouts went out and instead of seeing the land through the lens of already something that is theirs, already something that has been promised and seeing the land THROUGH the promise of God and HIS strength, they saw it through lens of their wants and their strength.
YES there were giants, YES there were armies that were powerful and large. Those are facts of the situation and when looking at the situation and comparing the armies and size of the people to the Israelites were they potentially “smaller” or less powerful on their own? sure.
BUT they had the God of the universe, the one who parted the red sea, split a rock to create water, talk through a burning bush, rain manna (food) from the sky so they could eat, on their side telling them that He was GIVING them the land. THAT is the lens that they should have been looking at.
So what do they do?
Instead of trusting in the one who has already miraculously saved, protected, and nourished them to do what He has promised them, they used what they SAW and their own self doubt to make the decision that they wouldn’t be able to win.
THEN
They spread that report and belief among all the people.

This next part is the part that pains my heart, so stick with me.

Chapter 14 verse 3 they say “Why is the Lord taking us to this country only to. have us die in battle? Our wives and our little ones will be carried off as plunder! wouldn’t it have been better for us to return to Egypt?.”
What they are doing here is projecting a narrative onto something that 1. hasn’t happened yet and 2. is going against who they know God to be!

Fact: God promised them the land and told them there were people living there. Fact: God is more powerful than anyone or anything. Fact: God has shown them that he can do the impossible when it looks like there is NO way.
They were not relying on the truth that day and instead believed a FASLE narrative about themselves AND God.

Now why do I say all of this and why did I dive so deep into this passage?
….because we do the same thing every day.

How many times have you decided not to do something because you said something along the lines of “well, I know I am going to fail anyway so I’m just not going to do it” or “I already know what they are going to say so why try?” or “I’m not good at ___ so its just not for me?”
I know I can’t be the only one who has said things along those lines and it is the #1 I work with in sessions.
The amount of times where someone is reacting from a place of a negative “what if” is astronomical. it has become such a normal way of speaking and thinking that most people don’t even realize they are doing it!

I am a lover of analogies and I use them often in my sessions, and one of my favorite ones to use is the invention of the airplane.
The idea of an airplane before it was created was just that, an idea. It was a “what if.” “What if we had a flying vehicle?” and in that what if statement were probably A LOT of negative what if’s to counter and dismantle the possibility of it working.
What the Wright brothers chose to do in that moment was say “what if it COULD work” and now, we have airplanes and they are a normal part of our lives.

A positive what if and a negative what if hold the same weight, they are the same! They are both “what ifs” but what we are doing to PROTECT ourselves is choose to believe the negative so that we don’t “fail.”
I tell my clients, for every negative what if you have, I can counter it with a positive.
“what if I don’t get the job?”– what if you do?
“what if I go and they don’t like me?”– what if you go and you become best friends?

What I am NOT “teaching” is Hyper Positivity, that everything is rainbows and butterflies and sunshine. BUT what I AM saying and what I believe scripture is showing us is that FAITH is trust and belief that God is who He says He is, He will do what He said He is going to do, and He is stronger than what we are afraid.
FEAR is trust and belief of the opposite. That you are not loved by God, that He won’t show up for you, and then you start making up a story in your head of how YOU think it is going to go to self protect instead of allowing the Lord to protect you in His strength.

All of that to say, my heart has been just turning and turning around the fact that we have the ability to choose what narrative we are going to trust and believe. And a lot of us are stuck in depression, anxiety, fear, because we are choosing to look at the Giants instead of our Father who loves us. We are looking at our ability instead of the creator of the entire world.

My challenge to you today: shift your gaze, shift your focus, take off the colored glasses and reach for truth (the Word) and see how much freedom there is in letting go of stories that haven’t happened and allow God to SHOW you the path that He is walking with you!