Melting Hearts

by Joyce Sykes
Published February 4, 2008

Have you ever watched a popsicle that has fallen on the ground on a hot summer day. The more intense the heat the quicker the cold treat melts. Nothing can stop that process except a blast of frigid cold air. Within a matter of minutes, it becomes a small puddle of liquid benefitig one.

That image came to me while studying Deuteronomy 1. “Where can we go up? Our brethren have discouraged our hearts, saying, “The people are greater and taller than we; the cities are great and fortified up to heaven; moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.”Deut 1:28. In the Amplified Bible, the word discouraged is translated ‘melt’. The Strong’s Concordance defines discouraged as this: to liquefy, to discourage, faint (with fatigue, fear or grief) and to waste (with disease).

The children of Israel had seen the hand of Jehovah as He inflicted plague after plague on Egypt just days earlier. Then the Lord provided them safe passage as He held back the flow of the Red Sea allowing Israel to cross on dry land. However, Pharaoh’s army was swept away to their death when they attempted to follow them. These same Israelites ate manna, which miraculously appeared every morning. They also saw the provision of water as it flowed out of a rock. Yet in just a short time, ten men paralyzed the hearts of a multitude of people by their evil report. The words of these spies made the problem seemed insurmountable, in spite of God’s provision during earlier events.

Forty years later the same word was used again in Joshua 2: 11 And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath. The Canaanite inhabitants throughout the Promise Land had simply heard of the wondrous feats that the unseen God of the Israelites had performed for His people and all their hearts melted. They had not witnessed a single event and yet the stories that spread through out their land for forty years had instilled a fear of the Israelites and their God Jehovah.

Rahab summoned up the issue in one simple statement. ‘for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.’ This Canaanite woman, who had never been taught the ways of Jehovah, now recognized and acknowledged the awesome power of the Israelite God. Willingly, she took the risk to help His followers. Her belief of who Jehovah was overcame her fear, strengthened her heart and produced her willingness to hide the two men sent to spy out her town.

The Israelites had believed the evil report of ten spies just as another vast group of people believed the stories of old many years later. Old and young, wise and foolish, men, women and children each reacted in terror and fear. That fear challenged their hearts and won; resulting in panic-stricken hearts that melted in the face of an approaching enemy.

Today as we search our hearts, we must truthfully face how we encounter the attacks against us. Do we allow the fear of men and their words to hinder us? Does the fear of being politically correct supersede our desire to be pleasing to the Lord? Do we run in fear from the giants in our life? Or, maybe we allow the faces of men to overpower what we know to be true about our Lord and Savior. This sixty-four thousand dollar question, must be honestly answered as we search our heart.

On the other hand, are we willing to stand tall and strong in the face of our enemies. We must learn that critical lesson from those surviving Israelites who crossed the Jordan to possess the Promised Land; that our God is more than able! We must accept and embrace the reality and truth that our victory comes from our belief that we can do all things through Christ who strengthen us even as we acknowledge that He is indeed both God of heaven above and the earth below in both our lives and in the lives of the people surrounding us.”

Blessings

Joyce Sykes

Viewed 133 times