In memory of Henry Blackaby,
and the crucial moment in my life
when he, and the Caleb of old,
encouraged me
to go with God.

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“Politics is a fact of life,” said the man sent to keep me in line. He meant, “Politics is a fact of life in the Southern Baptist Convention.”

“Maybe you need to be more of a politician,” he said. It was not a suggestion.

A visit with Henry Blackaby

A few days later, Henry Blackaby visited my workplace. He came to lead a chapel service for those of us identified as ministry leaders (almost all male) and those called administrative assistants (all female).

I had long known of Henry Blackaby. Two times, years apart, I had worked through his well-loved study, Experiencing God.

Blackaby did not know me. Yet I dared to email him ahead of that chapel service. I asked to meet with him.

Dire circumstances prompted my boldness: I had experienced more than a year of abuse at the hands of Christian leaders I had trusted. The fog of false accusation was thick and bewildering.

I wanted to talk with someone I believed was following God. I wanted to ask, “Are they right about me? Am I dishonoring the Lord and everyone else?”

By return email, Henry Blackaby agreed to meet with me in my office for 15 minutes. He arrived on time. And he stayed half an hour.

The first 10 minutes, I told him briefly about my situation, and asked for his honest input. The last 20 minutes, he told me about his surprisingly similar experiences working in an SBC entity. He encouraged me to keep following God.

As we talked, he brushed off repeated knocks at the door, and voices telling him, “Dr. Blackaby, everyone has gathered for the chapel service.”

When he did leave my office, I took a minute to breathe, then walked upstairs and slipped into the service just as it started. There, to my surprise, Blackaby affirmed me in front of my coworkers.

Then, he launched into a short talk that asserted: Loyalty to a church system does not equal faithfulness to God.

“We don’t need politicians in the church,” he said. “We need statesmen.”

A statesman like Caleb

Hearing those words, I recalled a man in Scripture named Caleb, and I realized: His life shows us how a statesman thinks and acts.

Caleb grew up in slavery in Egypt. He left Egypt in the Exodus, along with Moses and his fellow Israelites. Delivered by God, they all set out into the wilderness to reach a land the Lord had promised them, a land called Canaan.

A year later, they stood at its border.

That’s when Moses sent out 12 men to explore the land – one leader from each tribe. Caleb, the leader chosen from Judah, entered Canaan with the other eleven.

Walking the land, he saw fortified cities, formidable giants … and stunning fruitfulness. Returning to the Israelite camp, he heard the fear-filled reports given by 10 of the other men. He saw the terror in the people’s eyes.

Caleb the politician would have known when to go along. Caleb the statesman

silenced the people before Moses and said,
“We should go up and take possession of the land,
for we can certainly do it.” (Num. 13:30)

Did the people rally to his cry? No. All night, they wailed, “Woe is us!” Then, they started packing to return to Egypt, and to being enslaved.¹

A rower out of sync

Shortly before Henry Blackaby spoke to us in chapel about politicians vs. statesmen, my ministry-leader coworkers and I gathered in the same room to hear a lecture about teamwork. It’s interesting to realize now: Administrative assistants weren’t invited to that talk.

On a whiteboard, the presenter sketched several people in a rowboat. All the rowers faced the same direction – except one.

“Who is hurting the team?” the presenter asked.

“The one going a different direction,” a male chorus answered.

“Unless all the others are rowing toward a cliff!” I wanted to cry.

For months, I had privately approached leaders I thought would want to know about a cliff ahead. But when I saw the writing on the whiteboard, I did not speak up. I still could not agree to “just go along.” But at last, I recognized an ambush when I saw one.

My peers knew too: The teamwork lecture was a strong-arm tactic to warn me to get back in line, and to warn everyone else not to join the “troublemaker.”

Yet everyone else had already made clear: They would not buck the system, not even to follow God.

A different spirit

Fervently, Caleb and Joshua appealed to the crowd:

The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. Only do not rebel against the Lord. (Num. 14:7-9)

Afraid that the dissenters’ advice would destroy them all, the crowd threatened to stone Moses and Aaron, Joshua and Caleb.

When almost an entire nation went one way, Caleb was one of four rowing the other way.

Was he stubborn, reckless, divisive, a troublemaker? Was he presuming on God’s help and putting everyone’s future at risk? By his persistence in disregarding the political climate, did he needlessly create an uproar? Did he dishonor God when he distressed everyone else?

God says otherwise.

Passionately, the Lord rebuked the people “who saw my glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times.”

Profaned by his own, the Lord confronted and called out the people in covenant with him who “treated me with contempt” (Num. 14:22, 23).

Then, right in the middle of expressing his anger and grief, the Lord paused to single Caleb out:

But because my servant Caleb
has a different spirit
and follows me wholeheartedly,
I will bring him into the land he went to,
and his descendants will inherit it.
(Num. 14:24)

A fruitful life

The Bible gives few details of Caleb’s life. Yet, six times, Scripture affirms: Caleb followed the Lord fully.²

By the time he explored the promised land, his spirit was deeply attuned to God’s Spirit, eager to honor him, filled with delight in going where he led. Indeed, Caleb’s heart was so set on following the Lord that it didn’t have room for any competing choice.

Caleb believed God would fulfill what he had promised. All the people knew what God had promised them. Caleb knew it in his inmost being. Not to curry favor, not to protect his position or even his life, would he turn aside from following the Lord.

He pleaded with his people to go that way too. He pleaded with them for their good. What they thought would destroy them would instead lead into abundant life. And ultimately, the path they thought better, and were determined to choose, would take them over a cliff.

God himself shut down their return to Egypt, but he slammed the door to Canaan too. That meant Caleb would have to wait a very long time to live in the fruitful land where he had just walked. Yet he did not have to wait for fruitfulness.

Caleb spent four decades in the desert with a generation sentenced to purposelessness and death. But while the Israelites walked in circles, grumbling every step of the way, Caleb spent the agonizing 39-year delay living fully – and leading the next generation to follow God with their whole heart.

Joshua 14-15 tells the story of Caleb’s victory. At age 85, still as strong as the day he left Egypt, he led his clan to do what few Israelites did. All the tribes entered Canaan to live. Caleb’s clan laid hold of their inheritance to the full.

A blessing of fully following

The day I sat and talked with Henry Blackaby, I wanted a spirit like Caleb’s. I still want it, with all my heart. I want it for you, too.

Many years have passed since that day. Politics is still very much a fact of life in our evangelical church cultures. Politicians are welcomed, promoted, affirmed.

And still, the Lord our God has profound promises laid up for those who have a different spirit. In the name of our Lord, may I bless you to be among them?

Be blessed to seek your Lord wholeheartedly, to hear him clearly and follow him fully.

Be blessed to care deeply for people, and to seek what is best for them – even when the ones you’re trying to help reject and attack you for it.

Even in wilderness times, be blessed to bear much fruit – including the fruit of cultivating in others a spirit like Caleb had.

Regardless which way anyone else is rowing, dear one, you be filled with following God.

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I published the original version of this post Nov. 28, 2013, under the title, “Have a Caleb Spirit.” Updated it Dec. 27, 2019. Now, I’ve added some details, changed the title and reposted this story of two men of God who encouraged me at a crucial moment in my life.

Image: Rowing on sunset by morrmota / stock.xchng

See also

• Spirit, power, Elijah and an undivided heart
• Humble your soul, release your spirit
• The purpose of the wilderness
• You have circled this mountain long enough
• Going with God
• Bucking the system: Shunning, submission and Jesus
• Journey to a divided heart

Footnotes

1. Compare Galatians 4:1-9. ↩︎
2. See Numbers 14:24; 32:12; Deuteronomy 1:36; Joshua 14:8, 9, 14. ↩︎