When God came to Abraham (who was technically still Abram at the time, living in a funny place called Ur), he promised him three things.

I will give you a child. Check!

I will be with you. Check!

I will give you a land. Um, not quite check.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived in a good land called Canaan. But then everything got messed up with Joseph in the pit, and the famine, and the journey to Egypt, and four hundred years in slavery.

Or at least everything looked pretty messed up, because even though the people were walking through the desert somewhere, not too far removed from Egypt, God had not forgotten his promise. The problem is that even though God doesn’t forget, his people often do.

It was finally time for the Israelites to go back to the Promised Land. Goodbye, Egypt and desert. Hello, milk and honey! God was going to give Israel the land, just like he promised. But God’s people would need to be brave to believe God’s promise first.

So Moses sent twelve spies to see what Canaan looked like after all the years away. The good news was the land looked really sweet. Literally. Canaan was filled with grapes and figs and pomegranates and more grapes and lots of those honey milkshakes. The bad news? The people enjoying those fruit platters in Canaan were really big people in big cities guarded by big walls. Most of the spies said, “We’ll never make it. They’ll squish us like bugs.” Only two spies disagreed. Joshua and Caleb said, “Sure, the people are big. But our God is bigger. God wouldn’t lead us this far just to let us down now.”

Who would you believe—the ten or the two? Unfortunately, the people of Israel didn’t listen to Joshua and Caleb. In fact, they were so scared, they wanted to go back to Egypt. Can you believe that? I guess sometimes we like the bad things we know more than the good things we can’t see yet.

Once again, God was not happy with his people. And once again, Moses prayed for the people. And another once again, God did not destroy the people like they deserved. But this time he said, “No one who rebelled against me will see the Promised Land.” The people had more lessons to learn in the desert. God was on their side, but the people could not take what he had promised until they learned to take him at his word.