Strength in Numbers

By Bishop Ed Stephens Jr.

Life happens, and each situation life presents you will determine exactly how you respond, revealing who you really are inside. The choice is yours and yours alone.

The brave ones are those who face danger or pain head-on without shrinking back in fear. There may be times when you have to navigate through trials and challenges, but those are the very elements that can drastically alter the way you live life and enter the future.

For example, when brave men like Joshua are mentioned in the Bible, it’s always in connection with war or possessing the spirit of a warrior. A brave person is often stereotypically depicted as a solitary person. But bravery is not always characterized by a rugged, individualist outlook.

If anything, the secrets to Joshua’s ability to withstand the grief and loss of confidence he suffered after the death of Moses came from his trusted companions, especially Caleb. They were the only two men who believed that God could lead them to take the Promised Land while 10 others who went to check out Canaan came back full of fear:

There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.” Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it” (Numbers 13:26-30).

At that point, the naysayers carried the day. They believed they would fail, and because of their doubt, magnified the size of the inhabitants, describing the Israelites as grasshoppers by comparison. That kind of negativity had consequences. God declared that none of those timid spies would enter the promised land; in fact, every other person over the age of 20 would die in the wilderness. Only Joshua and Caleb would continue the triumphant journey.

What does this mean to us today? We need friends who will stand with us during the changes life brings. Famed psychologist and researcher Dr. Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) was best known for his “hierarchy of needs” to explain human motivation; he believed people have a number of basic needs that must be met before they pursue more social, emotional and self-actualizing needs.

In the latter stages of his research he took a negative view on the state of the average American’s emotional health. Maslow estimated the average American meets only about 50% of his need for love, interpersonal support and intimacy. In one of his unpublished papers, “The Social World of Self-Actualizing People,” he wrote, “The truth is, the average American does not have a real friend in the world.”

In times of transition, when relationships are threatened, when we go through the winds of change brought on by natural disasters, economic calamities or other forces beyond our control, we need those community and support networks that can help us make it through to the other side.

Be brave, but don’t do it alone.