Taking Hebron

The other day I was thinking about the title of this blog. Before this blog I taught a small group/Bible study that's name was Taking Hebron. Betsy and I named our group this after the story in Joshua 14:6-15.

The first time Caleb ever saw Hebron was when he and the others were sent into the Promise Land as spies. He saw the same giants the others saw still when he returned to Moses and the children he said: "Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it."

But the children would not go in. Still Moses swore on that day "Surely the land where your foot has trodden shall be your inheritance and your children’s forever, because you have wholly followed the LORD my God."

I was at a Bible study once that compared Hebron, the mountain of giants, to your greatest struggle. It posed the question, what is your mountain of giants? 

I had a mountain of giants and I was going to take it. Thus Taking Hebron.

Now 3 1/2 years later I was considering the title of this blog and wondering if it was still relevant. We are never a completed work, but am I still taking Hebron (my mountain of giants) or have I now taken it and am just maintaining this mountain?

The Lord brought me back to the story in Joshua and broadened the picture from what I had learned at the study. I may have taken my mountain of giants, but what about the fullness of the promise? What about the fullness of my inheritance?

Hebron was Caleb's promised inheritance. The Lord promised to drive out their enemies from before them, but only as quickly as they could inhabit the land they were taking. 

To me Hebron used to represent one struggle. One mountain of giants, but Hebron is really more than that.

The Lord has given us a promise an inheritance, but it's not the kind that comes as a check in the mail.

Hebron belonged to Caleb, but he had to take it. The Lord promised to go before him and drive out his enemies, but Caleb had to take every claiming step and fight every battle to gain what was rightfully his.

The name Hebron means: Association (to join together, connect, combine)

Taking Hebron is not one struggle that needs to be overcome, it's my whole life. I have been promised an inheritance, and I aim to claim it all. He has promised to drive out my enemies from before me as quickly as I can inhabit the land, but I must choose to take every claiming step and fight every battle to gain what is rightfully mine. And as I do, I join together more and more with the One who gave this inheritance to me. I begin to hear what He hears, see what He sees, think how He thinks, and bear His heart.

This journey of Taking Hebron isn't a journey of misery, but of joy. Every step taken, every battle won, takes me further away from the death of who I was to the Life in who He is.

Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb... to this day, 

because he wholly followed the LORD God of Israel.

Joshua 14:14