Facing Your Giants-Day 4
Give Me This Mountain
Joshua 14:6–15 (NKJV) "Now therefore, give me this mountain of which the LORD spoke in that day... if the LORD will be with me, I shall be able to drive them out as the LORD said." (Joshua 14:12)
Forty-five years. That is how long Caleb waited.
Imagine spending nearly half a century holding on to a promise that had not yet been fulfilled. Forty-five years of wilderness wandering. Forty-five years of watching an entire generation pass away. Forty-five years of believing God while circumstances seemed to say otherwise.
Yet when Caleb finally stood in the Promised Land, he did not ask Joshua for an easy assignment.
He asked for the hardest one.
"Give me this mountain."
That request becomes even more remarkable when we remember what occupied the mountain.
The giants.
The descendants of Anak still lived there. The very people who had terrified the ten spies decades earlier remained entrenched in their fortified cities. The challenge had not become easier simply because time had passed.
But Caleb had not spent forty-five years thinking about the giants.
He had spent forty-five years thinking about the promises of God.
What a difference that makes.
Most people become more cautious with age. We naturally seek comfort, stability, and predictability. Caleb was eighty-five years old, yet he was asking for the most difficult battlefield in all of Canaan.
Why?
Because faith does not retire.
Caleb told Joshua,
"As yet I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me... just as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war."
His confidence was not rooted in physical ability alone. After all, no eighty-five-year-old man naturally defeats armies of giants. Caleb's confidence rested on a far firmer foundation.
"The LORD will be with me."
Those five words explain everything.
Caleb understood what many believers forget.
God's presence matters more than our circumstances.
Too often we ask God for easier mountains.
We pray for fewer obstacles.
We hope the giants will simply disappear.
Yet God frequently accomplishes His greatest work not by removing the mountain but by strengthening His people to climb it.
The Christian life has never been about avoiding difficulty.
It is about trusting God through difficulty.
Caleb teaches us another valuable lesson.
He refused to allow disappointment to produce bitterness.
Think about all he endured.
He watched an entire nation reject God's promise.
He spent decades wandering because of someone else's unbelief.
He buried friends and family members in the wilderness.
He waited year after year for something that should have happened much sooner.
Many people would have become cynical.
Many would have complained.
Many would have concluded that obedience was not worth the cost.
Caleb did none of those things.
He remained faithful while he waited.
That may be exactly what someone reading this needs to hear today.
Perhaps you are waiting.
Waiting for healing. Waiting for direction. Waiting for answers. Waiting for restoration.
Waiting for a prodigal child to come home. Waiting for an opportunity to serve.
Waiting for God to open a door that has remained closed for years. Waiting can be one of life's greatest tests of faith.
Yet waiting is never wasted when it is spent trusting God. The years between God's promise and God's fulfillment are often the very years He uses to shape our character.
Caleb's faith at eighty-five did not suddenly appear.
It had been cultivated day after day, year after year, through decades of trusting the Lord.
Faithfulness is rarely built in dramatic moments.
It is forged in ordinary days of obedience.
The same God who strengthened Caleb still strengthens His people today.
He still equips believers to face mountains that seem impossible.
He still empowers His children to overcome obstacles that others consider insurmountable.
He still honors those who follow Him wholeheartedly.
Notice something else about Caleb's story.
The mountain he requested eventually became part of his inheritance.
The place everyone else feared became the place God used to display His faithfulness.
What if the very obstacle you are trying to avoid is actually the place where God intends to reveal His power most clearly?
Perhaps the giant standing on your mountain is not there to stop you.
Perhaps it is there so that when victory comes, everyone will know it was God who accomplished it.
As your pastor pointed out in the sermon, Caleb did not run away from the giants.
He ran toward them because he knew that where God had placed His promises, the enemy often stationed his greatest opposition. Yet Caleb believed God's Word more than he feared the enemy.
Today, do not pray merely for an easier path.
Pray for Caleb's faith.
Ask God for the courage to say,
"Lord, give me this mountain."
Because mountains become testimonies when God is the One leading you to climb them.
Reflection Questions
What "mountain" has God placed before you that you have been hesitant to climb?
How has waiting tested your faith?
Are you asking God to remove the obstacle, or are you asking Him to strengthen you through it?
What promises from God's Word encourage you to keep trusting while you wait?
How can Caleb's example help you face your current challenges with renewed confidence?
Closing Prayer
Heavenly Father,
Thank You for the example of Caleb, whose faith remained steadfast through decades of waiting. Teach me to trust Your promises even when fulfillment seems delayed. Give me courage to face the mountains You have placed before me instead of shrinking back in fear. Help me to remember that Your presence is greater than any obstacle I encounter. Strengthen my heart to follow You wholeheartedly, and may my life become a testimony of Your faithfulness. Whatever mountain lies ahead, help me to say with confidence, "Lord, give me this mountain," knowing that You go before me.
In the mighty name of Jesus, Amen.