To Restart Requires the Desire to Finish What We Start...

Yesterday, we looked at a section of a letter in our Bibles from the book of Joshua where God provided guidance and direction to the Jewish people as to how they were to divide and settle into the Promised Land. And as Joshua and his leadership team began the process to divide the land, we see a member of the Jewish nation come to the forefront with a special request of Joshua. And it is in this request and it is through this life that we are introduced to another timeless principle that is necessary when it comes to restarting our lives. So let’s meet this member of the Jewish nation again, beginning in Joshua 14:6:

Then the sons of Judah drew near to Joshua in Gilgal, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, "You know the word which the LORD spoke to Moses the man of God concerning you and me in Kadesh-barnea. "I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, and I brought word back to him as it was in my heart. "Nevertheless my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt with fear; but I followed the LORD my God fully. "So Moses swore on that day, saying, 'Surely the land on which your foot has trodden will be an inheritance to you and to your children forever, because you have followed the LORD my God fully.'

To understand what is happening here, we first need to be reminded of Caleb and his story. As we discovered at the beginning of this sermon series, 45 years prior to this conversation, twelve spies were sent to provide a report about the Promised Land that God was going to give the Jewish people. And as the Jewish people waited at the doorstep to the Promised Land, these spies returned from their journey and described the beauty and blessings that the land would provide the people.

But instead of trusting God to overcome the obstacles that they would face on the way to the Promised Land, these spies led the Jewish people to reject and rebel against God. All of the spies, except for two, named Joshua and Caleb. Only Joshua and Caleb faithfully trusted God to bring them into the Promised Land. In another letter in our Bibles, called the book of Numbers, we see God, in the midst of responding to the selfish rebellion of the Jewish people, describe Caleb and his character in Numbers 14:24:

"But My servant Caleb, because he has had a different spirit and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land which he entered, and his descendants shall take possession of it.

For the rest of the Jewish people, however, God responded to their selfish rebellion and rejection of Him by causing the entire adult population to wander in the desert until they died. So for forty years, between 1.5 and 2 million people wandered in the desert filled with frustration, failure and rebellion. Can you imagine how Joshua and Caleb must have felt during those forty years of wandering in the desert due to the selfish rebellion of others?

So for forty years Caleb wandered in circles, clinging to God’s promise that someday he would enter into the Promised Land as a result of his willingness to trust God and fully follow Him. For forty years, Caleb remained faithful to follow God fully while he wandered and watched as his lost and rebellious family and friends died. And as Caleb recounts his story to Joshua, who was the only other person of that wandering wilderness generation to step foot into the Promised Land; and as Caleb tells his story to this new generation of the Jewish people looking to restart their lives, we see the evidence of God’s activity in his life revealed, beginning in verse 10:

"Now behold, the LORD has let me live, just as He spoke, these forty-five years, from the time that the LORD spoke this word to Moses, when Israel walked in the wilderness; and now behold, I am eighty-five years old today. "I am still as strong today as I was in the day Moses sent me; as my strength was then, so my strength is now, for war and for going out and coming in.”?

In verse 10, Caleb reminds the Joshua and the Jewish people that God is a promise maker and a promise keeper. For forty years, Caleb wandered in a desert of hurt, pain disappointment and failure as a consequence of the selfish rebellion of others. And for forty years, Caleb recognized the reality that while disappointment and death was an all too present reality all around him, it was God who let him live.

And not only did God let him live; God blessed Caleb. Caleb was an eighty five year old man living in a forty year olds body. Caleb still possessed and maintained the same spiritual, physical and emotional drive and desire to fully follow God. Caleb still possessed that different spirit; that spirit that leaned into God and swam against the current of the circumstances around him and into God’s promises and plans. And it is that different spirit; it is that desire to follow God fully that leads Caleb to make an amazing request, which is recorded for us in Joshua 14:12. Let’s look at this request together:

"Now then, give me this hill country about which the LORD spoke on that day, for you heard on that day that Anakim were there, with great fortified cities; perhaps the LORD will be with me, and I will drive them out as the LORD has spoken."?

To grasp the significance of Caleb’s request here, we first must understand where this hill country was located and its significance to Caleb and the Jewish people. This hill country was located in a part of the Promised Land known as Hebron. Caleb, Joshua, and the ten other spies had visited this hill country some 45 years earlier. We read about this land, and the response of the ten other spies to what they had seen in this land, in Numbers 13:32-33:

So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, "The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. "There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight."

It was this report about this hill country that led the Jewish people to selfishly rebel and reject God and his promises. And it was this hill country that Caleb wanted to occupy and possess. For while the Jewish nation conquered the nations that ruled this hill country, there would still be battles to be fought in order to occupy and settle this land. There would be insurgents who would try to keep the Jewish people from occupying and settling the land.

And Caleb wanted this battle. And this battle was not just any battle; this battle would be with the very people that so intimidated the Jewish spies some 45 years earlier that they failed to trust God and instead brought a bad report to the Jewish people. You see, Caleb did not want a garden spot in the Promised Land at a resort with a golf membership and a spa to retire and settle into. Instead, Caleb wanted to finish something that he had started some 45 years earlier. Caleb wanted to finish something that he recognized was filled with potential challenges and difficulties. Caleb recognized he needed to finish what he had started some 45 years earlier in order to fully restart his life.

And in Caleb’s story, we see revealed for us another timeless principle that enables us to restart our lives. And that timeless principle is this: to restart requires the desire to finish what we start. Just like Caleb, when it comes to restarting our lives, we often find ourselves faced with challenges and difficulties that must be overcome. And to overcome those challenges requires the desire to finish what we start.

If we are brutally honest with ourselves, isn’t this one on the main reasons why we fail to keep New Year’s resolutions. We begin the New Year with a desire to restart our lives through New Year’s resolutions, but as time goes on, the desire to restart and change our lives begins to weaken and wane. And usually, by March, we find ourselves faced with disappointment and failure when it comes to restarting our lives because the desire to finish what we have started is overwhelmed by the challenges and difficulties that come with change. If you do not think that this is the case, just go visit a gym in January and then go back in March. Instead of leaning into and trusting God to do what only He can do as we do what we need to do to swim against the current of circumstances and into God’s promises and plans, we give in to the desires and fears that compete with the desire to restart and change our lives.

When Caleb says perhaps the Lord will be with me, this is not a negative statement. In the language that this story was originally written in, this phrase conveys a sense of hope. Caleb possessed a hope that the Lord would continue to be present with him as He had been during these 45 years and would continue to keep the promise that He had made to Caleb some 45 years earlier. Caleb had a confident expectation that God would continue to do what God could only do as Caleb remained faithful to do what he was supposed to do when it came to restarting his life. And as this story continues, we see Joshua’s response to Caleb’s amazing request in Joshua 14:13:

“So Joshua blessed him and gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance. Therefore, Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite until this day, because he followed the LORD God of Israel fully. Now the name of Hebron was formerly Kiriath-arba; for Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim. Then the land had rest from war.”?

Joshua responded to Caleb’s amazing request by doing two things. First, Joshua blessed Caleb. The word bless here literally means to pray and ask for God’s enabling power to be upon him. Joshua prayed that the Lord would continue to be present with Caleb and would empower Caleb to restart his life by finishing what he started some 45 years earlier. Second, Joshua responded to Caleb’s amazing request by granting the request. Joshua gave Hebron to Caleb as his possession.

And in verse 15, we see that Caleb finished what he started. Caleb faced and defeated the giant insurgents of Hebron and brought peace to the entire region. The very giants that caused the previous generation to selfishly rebel and reject God were now defeated by a man who desired to finish what he started. And just like Caleb, to restart requires a desire to finish what we have started.

So what have you started this new year when it comes to restarting your life? And how is what you started going? Do you still have the desire and drive to finish what you have started when it comes to restarting your life? Or do you find yourself struggling, or being overwhelmed, with competing desires and fears when it comes to restarting your life?

What do you need to do this week when it comes to finishing what you started?