Joshua & Caleb were right

When Moses sent Joshua and Caleb and the other spies into the Promised Land land to check it out, they brought back reports of milk and honey flowing and giant fruit, as well as actual giants (Exodus 13 & 14). I think that somewhere in the back of my mind, I had reduced this to fairytale. Giants are hard enough to believe, but giant fruit? Come on! My experience had always been that the smaller fruit had more flavor, any large fruit seemed like a freak of nature; over-fertiziled and somehow tricked into growing really big, but losing it's great taste somewhere along the way. I think that it has been especially true in the last few years. I would buy these beautiful specimins and then be utterly disappointed when I bit into them. I had just about given up on fruit.

So when the giant strawberries started appearing in the souk, I would walk by thinking, they sure are beautiful, but they're too expensive and probably have no taste at all.



I did break down and buy oranges finally and they turned out to be so good that I thought that maybe the strawberries might be okay too. Yesterday I noticed that the price had come way down, so I decided to buy some. They don't come in the tiny little containers that you see in American stores; it's more like a container built for a family of eight and the average strawberry was about 2 1/2 inches. But I bought one thinking that probably the ones on the bottom were bad anyway. When I got home I bit into one (it was way too big to put the whole thing in my mouth!) and it was the sweetest, most flavorful thing I have tasted in ages. I had never before met a strawberry that didn't need a little sugar to make it sweet. And out of the whole package, there was one that was bad, and it was a very small one. Now I have more strawberries than any one single person needs, but oh well.

Lately I've been asking God to fill me with awe at His word. Maybe the giant strawberries are proof of His word, because I am now in awe of the fact that Joshua and Caleb were not exaggerating and it was not just a fairytale.

There really are Giants in the land as well--sometimes I'm overwhelmed with them. Tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, coal mines collapsing, schools teaching that evolution is true and banning teachers from even suggesting that God made us and the earth, suicide bombers, and not knowing what's going to happen now that Israeli Prime Minister Sharon is incapacitated. But in the middle of all these giants, there are these strawberries. These little glimpses of the goodness of the Promised Land, a sign that God has not forsaken us, though our actions say that He should. God didn't want the children of Israel to fear the giants; He knew He could and would take care of them. But they let the fear crowd out the incredible blessings that God wanted to give them, so He let them wander in the desert for forty years.

Forty years.
No thank you.
God can handle the giants. I'm going to savour every bite of His goodness in the Promised Land.

And just in case you were wondering about the milk and honey, since I've been in Israel, not a drop of milk has gone bad in my house! I think I could drink it by the gallon, and let me assure you, this is no small miracle. I was always throwing out spoiled milk back home—I don't think I ever finished a container! As for the honey, I just bought my first and it definitely wasn't disappointing.