“The people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large… But Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, ‘We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.’”
—Numbers 13:28, 30
The other spies weren’t wrong.
The people really were powerful. The cities really were fortified. The obstacles really were enormous. Caleb had walked through the same land and seen the same things they had.
But Caleb saw something more.
The others measured the challenge against their own strength. Caleb measured it against the faithfulness of the God who had brought them this far.
Faith doesn’t require us to pretend the giants aren’t giants. It doesn’t minimize the diagnosis, the addiction, the broken relationship, the financial crisis, the fear, or whatever impossible-looking thing stands in front of us. Faith looks squarely at what is real—and remembers that what we can see is not all there is.
The obstacles were real.
But so was God.
Caleb’s confidence wasn’t ultimately in Israel’s ability. It was in the God who had made them a promise.
The Pivot: Faith doesn’t deny the size of what stands before us. It remembers the size of the One who stands with us. God’s got this giant before you.
Big Buts of the Bible 
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