Fear vs Faith: Mind Your Mindset Sample

Day One: Mindset Mistakes

A group of leaders are chosen to go and explore the land that has been promised to the Israelites. They are given instructions to carry out and so they go! Seems simple enough. But what unfolds is a gigantic mindset challenge! They do the observing that they have been instructed to do, but they make 3 mindset mistakes that we will all do well to learn from and avoid!

First, they forget God’s promise. Specifically, they forget Numbers 13 verse 2 which says, “Send out men to explore the land of Canaan, the land I am giving to the Israelites.” The land was being given to them, their task was simply to gather some information and report back. They forgot all about the promise that made their scouting mission a mere fact-finding journey, NOT an evaluative one! They added the job of evaluating whether their human abilities could measure up to what they saw…and what they saw were very LARGE people. The promise of the land that God had given was not in their minds as they looked around.

Which lead them directly into the second mindset mistake. They compare themselves to the people in the land. When they see such large people, giants no less, they argue with Caleb, saying “We can’t go up against them! They are stronger than we are!” The scouts make the mistake that we all are tempted to make. When others seem bigger, more powerful, or more skilled than us, we automatically assume that we don’t measure up. How often do we wind up like these men did, saying, “next to them we felt like grasshoppers”. Have you dubbed yourself a grasshopper in the comparison game?

The third mindset mistake is completely forgetting the power of God! Having called the people in the land giants and themselves grasshoppers, their faith was effectively dead. The scouts take God out of the equation altogether, considering what they see with fearful, human eyes. I think I probably do this every day in some way; I assume others know more than me, I predict that I won’t be accepted, or I guess that I’ll be a disappointment. We, too, forget that God’s promises will be accomplished through means that we may not be able to imagine in human terms.

What are you facing today that tempts you into these mindset mistakes? What might it look like to remember God’s promises to you? How can you resist the temptation to call yourself a grasshopper in comparison to others? And how might it be to believe God’s power might be a factor in your challenges? God longs for you to have a mindset of faith. Avoiding these mindset mistakes is step one.