Caleb, tearing his clothes

Numbers 14:24

But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it.

O Lord, this sojourn almost over!

O Lord, the goodness of the land glimpsed!

O Lord, this tantalizing vision experienced, me in the land, walking it in the joy of anticipated possession!

Lord, this promise, this promise, this has been my feast for years, living and breathing in the promise with the hope of things to come. I have made a life upon it, sustained in the long years when we cried out in Egypt. How many times was I mocked, even among my own people, for making the promise my desire? How often was I told of the emptiness of it, the foolishness of hoping for impossible things, the dead words heard by one of our fathers. How much better to make our lots here bearable, to improve the conditions in which we labored, to dissipate amongst the Egyptians, to join with them in the society they were building, and thus to honor our God amongst their gods through the glory of man's works. This was the pragmatist voice, supposedly, the voice of the self-described practical man, that at the very least we should drop the noxious idea of our cultural peculiarity and superiority, that vexing thing to our masters. The thought of escape seemed distant, even as the burden of slavery grew and grew. In such circumstances, men could either abandon their hope, or cry out, or convert over the life of their faith. Some gave in, the overseers amongst us, what some men made of Moses before he showed himself. Others gave up what hope they had, rebelling emptily, dying in the cynicism and brokenness of true despair. But we, we lions, we cried out.

There next to the bones of Joseph we cried out. There in our slavery we cried out. There the promises were as real to us as they ever have been. There the compassion of God was made known, the compassion of moments and days, hope born again and again as we cried, in the crying strengthened, for he would come, and we knew beyond knowing that what he spoke was true, the words of it coming to our hearts as they did to Abraham's. We possessed the promises and in our mind they were framed real.

Ah faith, that magnificent thing, how dear you are to the hungry heart, both satisfying it and nurturing the hunger, increasing it! O faith, in its nature it brings close distant things, so that I stand as close now to the promises as Abraham once did, for the power behind them neither waxes nor wanes, a steadiness that makes the fulfillment as sure if it were still a thousand years distant!

But now, does closeness increase the trust? For I have walked in the fulfillment of the promises, I have seen them and tasted the fruits of them. O they are there, the goodness of the land a real thing. We walked it, examined its dimensions, testing the claims of the God who promised it. O God, did my heart ever doubt the truth of your word? Did I ever question that the land would be what you said it would be? No, no, never Lord! This heart is a steady heart, a heart that is all for you, that beats and burns with only one love!

Lord, I will have no other master!

This is my heart, from the beginning, a heart for you.

But Lord...

[for a moment, he can hardly think]

Lord, I am here on the cusp, on the bring, on the edge, the thing promised here, here, Lord, I am here and I saw it, and it was mine for a moment, it was ours, Joshua and I seeing its spaces and hunger was brought to the pitch that they call fulfillment, as it was lifted into itself, O Lord, I was there, it was mine, and now, these people, O Lord, give them...

Lord, take away their wicked hearts, Lord, forgive and overwhelm them, Lord, do not destroy us! Lord, what can I say that will appease you, O Lord, my mouth is shut before you though my heart rushes forward...

Lord...

[he rips his robe]

Hold them back, O master of hearts!

Lord, I know that my heart is not special in itself! Lord, that I can see and hear is not mine to possess! O Lord, I stand before the promises like every man, their content the same, spoken to each man alike, yet for me to hear them is no act of my will, no choice that I took, for I was compelled into my cries, my heart taken not given, though given once taken, and I have no claim on the joy that such a sight brings!

Lord, you can do this! Lord, you can do all things! Lord, you took us through the Red Sea, destroying the Egyptians behind us, feeding us from the sky and guiding us by the fire and smoke! Lord, this is your power, over all created things, and my heart is no less created than anything else! Lord, then, take them, take them, restrain them, hold them back, O Lord, I can taste the promises and my heart longs for them!

How many times must I repeat this prayer before the quality of my heart has been shown to me? Lord, fulfill your promises and give us this land! Lord, I long for it! I know it is a shadow only, for who doesn't know this when he sees his body decay before him, knowing that a blessing from an eternal one must be eternal and that the promises we have been given are our blessing according to the word given to Abraham, and that the land stands for the substance which is ours as well, they that can see and hold, a more real place as the promises are more real than the words of men!

Lord, these men are fools, fools, no fear of God is in them, and foolishness is weakness opposing strength, a wrong and irrational estimation of things, and they who oppose you have even seen you in the fire, have watched as you consumed Nadab and Abihu, as you destroyed the firstborn of Egypt, as your plague burned among us, as you killed with your snakes, with your fire, O Lord, how can they see such things and still oppose you! O the obstinancy of the hardened heart! I have seen and trembled, but they have seen and boldly oppose!

O Lord, I long as my heart, in the mercy of longing, and if I have to ask again and again and again I will, for all my heart is for the great future, and I want nothing from this world, I will not be denied you, for I already possess you.

Lord, they choose the slavery of Egypt over you! Lord, they shake before men of the Earth (what matters the power of even the mightiest men before him who reigns?)! Lord, they humble themselves before flesh and stand proud in front of you! Lord, they harden their hearts and close their ears!

Bound we are, bound by the Words of God, bound by the constrains of what he says. These boundaries are not like the chains of Egypt, that which mediated all our actions through the pain and pleasure of our flesh. No, these bounds give us a scope to act, a power of motion that is the treasure of those who can see them. For if God has promised us this land, than we are bound to enter it, but there is a fearlessness in such an entrance, a fearlessness that the heart leaps to life in front of.

Their bodies will drop, empty and dead in the desert. Lord, but preserve the people, preserve them, preserve me! Preserve your promises, your word, the only hope of this broken world, the promises that give land to the landless, the promises that penetrate deeper to the blessing, the deep blessing, that which makes living so I come, drawn by the goodness of it into a complete heart, a heart for him, a heart that cries out in all things, always fixed, always centered, always set where the life comes forth, from God, from his hand, in his words we live and breathe and have our being, and this life of faith, this spiritual life, glimpsed in the shadow of the goodness of the land, it will be the preserved hope always of my heart and those akin to me, my people, your people, O Lord, sustain us that we may bring forth the life of this promise, punish and purge us, that you may succor for all time the people by this terrible warning, and I, my name bright by the glory shining it, may one day walk here, one day take it all for myself, possessing and owning it as only the promises can deliver! My heart cries out and will not cease!