Hope or Fear

There’s a familiar story I learned as boy in Sunday school. It’s recorded in the book of Numbers in the thirteenth chapter. Here’s a brief summary of that story: Moses and the children of Israel are on the threshold of entering the Promised Land. So Moses sends twelve spies to reconnoiter the land (Canaan) they believed God was giving to them.

So after forty days the spies return and report to Moses what they saw. All twelve were impressed with the abundance of the land but the native inhabitants frightened ten of them. Here’s their report in short: “To ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them” (Number 13:33).

Only Caleb and Joshua advised Moses and Aaron to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to seize the land being offered to them—to move forward rather than backwards as it were.

Now here is what I want us to see in this story. Who did the people believe? Whose counsel did the people accept? Joshua and Caleb’s hopeful report or the fearful report of the other ten spies?

You guessed it: The people chose fear over hope! They chose to embrace the message of doom and gloom rather than the message of a hopeful new future!

So the people began screaming at Moses saying they would prefer to go back either into slavery or back to the wilderness rather than face the difficult challenges and opportunities that lie before them. They chose to embrace fear rather than hope.

As a nation we are in a very similar place in our history with a very similar decision to make: Do we retreat back into an idealized past or move courageously forward into a hopeful future? As voting citizens we can choose whose message we are going to embrace as we look towards the future.

As I listen to the presidential debates I hear a lot of fear mongering from the candidates. Ironically they are insisting that the pathway into America’s future is through the past. Their popular mantra confirms their defeatist and fearful ideology: “Make America Great Again!” The operative word here is “Again” suggesting that we go back to Egypt or back into the wilderness.

Like no other nation on earth the United States has the potential to lead the world in ways that are life giving rather than in the fearfully death-dealing ways (militarism) we seem so eager to embrace these days. Peddling fear may win votes but it is a good recipe for national decline (to which all former great nations will attest).

America has the incredible resources and the genius to boot to really become a difference maker in today’s world, to fearlessly meet the difficult challenges of the 21st century with ingenuity, intelligence, courage, and steadfast resolve. We need only the will to really make a difference: To embrace the message of fearless hope and vision.

Just think of the challenges that lie before us: Cancer, Alzheimer’s and Dementia, poverty, and sexual trafficking alone could more than occupy our nation’s energies, time, and resources for a whole generation. These are not just Liberal or Conservative issues but rather moral and ethical issues. We have the abilities and resources to face these difficult challenges; we just need the focus of will.

As American citizens we have an opportunity to begin changing the culture of fear that seems to have gripped the heart of America: A fear that too often leads to suspicion, scapegoating, racism, and isolation by becoming a true global leader of hope for the rest of the world.

It really is all about priorities, isn’t it? As you finish this article please consider the following question: Which one of the following two has personally affected you or a loved one the most in the past ten years: Terrorism or Cancer? I suspect I already know the answer to that question.

So which will it be for us: Fear or Hope? Which will we choose to help move our nation into the foreseeable future? I choose hope over fear because I know the rest of the story—and so should you.