What do you want the most? Would it be good news for you if God gave it to you? Well, it certainly would be, if you are asking for anything that is in accordance with His will. After all, God always knows what is best for ourselves and our loved ones. Trusting His judgment instead of our own is an essential component of our faith in Him.

But what if we’re asking for something that isn’t good for us? What if our desires run directly contrary to what God says He wants for us? That was certainly the case in today’s passage. After all, God had specifically said that He was giving the land of Canaan to the people of Israel (Numbers 13:2). And He had told them to send spies into the land so they could see this gift in all its beauty and bounty. Moreover, God wanted the people to see the obstacles that He was prepared to remove from before them, so they would give Him more honor and praise.

But when the people heard the report of the spies, they refused to believe in God’s promise. They denied that God could possibly defeat their enemies in the land. And so, in their despair, they cried out, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness (Numbers 14:2)!

In today’s passage, we see that God gave them what they wanted. Since they were afraid to enter the Promised Land, their only option was to die in the desert. And the sobering truth is that God continues to give people what they want, even today. God doesn’t force Himself on those who don’t want to trust Him, those who don’t want to be in fellowship with Him, those who don’t want Him to direct their steps. In His perfect justice, God is willing to let people cut themselves off from Him, their only source of life and light. Like a parent of a wayward child, God certainly doesn’t desire any of us to act in such a self-destructive manner (Ezekiel 18:32). But love sometimes means having to let people do what they want, even if it’s not good for them.

So, isn’t it good news is that in His sovereign grace, God gives some of us different desires? After all Caleb and Joshua also got what they wanted in this passage – they got to go into the Promised Land. And the good news is that for all who want to be with God, for those who trust in Jesus, for those who want the Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us, well God gives us what we want as well.

So, what do you want the most? Let’s pray God would give us an ever greater desire for Him alone.

Numbers 14:26-30 (ESV)

26 And the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying,
27 “How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me.
28 Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the LORD, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you:
29 your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me,
30 not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.