There was an optimist who decided he had found a good plan to pull his negative-thinking friend out of his pessimistic ways. The optimist owned a hunting dog that could really walk on water. His plan was to take the pessimist and the dog out duck hunting in a boat. They got out into the middle of the lake, and the optimist shot down a duck. The dog immediately walked out across the water, retrieved the duck, and walked back to the boat. The optimist looked at his negative friend and said, “What do you think about that?” The pessimist replied, “He can’t swim, can he?”
Some people live under a cloud of negativism, no matter the circumstance. Such was the case of Shammua. And it wasn’t only Shammua, but his nine cohorts, Shaphat, Igal, Palti, Gaddiel, Gaddi, Ammiel, Sethur, Nahbi, and Geuel. If none of these names sound familiar, it’s probably because they are named only once in Scripture, yet their negativism doomed hundreds of thousands of people.
After a short time of traveling through the desert from Egypt to the Promised Land, the Israelites were positioned and ready to move into the land the Lord had given to them. Yet just prior to their entering, the Lord commanded Moses, “Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites” (Numbers 13:2). The plan was simple. God was giving the land to his people. He wanted them to explore it and discover what they could look forward to. For 40 days these spies roamed the region. From north to south and from east to west, they took account of this beautiful, rich land that was to be their new home. When they returned, they were given an opportunity to tell the Israelites of the beauty and prosperity of this land. They even brought back souvenir samples of the fruit of the land, which should have enlarged the eyes of all the people. So what was their report?
“The people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of the Anak [giants] there” (13:28). They added that the Amalekites, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites, and the Canaanites were also there. Scripture tells us that “They spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land” (13:32).
Their negative reporting served its purpose. It spread among the people. Negativity has the distinct ability to spread easily. Soon it grew into a plot to replace Moses and Aaron and return to Egypt for fear that their wives and children would be taken and they would die in battle. “That night all the people . . . raised their voices and wept aloud” (14:1). Then they decided to stone Moses and Aaron. Like a cancer spreading, within hours the fear from the negative reports had blown into a full- scale rebellion.
There is a danger of always looking at the world through negative-tinted glasses. Sadly, there are many Christians who spend their days thinking negative thoughts and spewing negative words. They live by the axiom that misery loves company, so they look for anyone who will share their negative feelings. And so the baton is passed, and the negativism begins to spread like the cancer that overtook the Israelites.
Such feelings were not the Lord’s intent in the wilderness, nor does he want his people today to drag their sour faces on the ground as they recount all the bad things happening around them. Habakkuk said it well: “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior” (3:17,18). How does the Lord feel about negative attitudes? “[The] men responsible for spreading the bad report about the land were struck down and died of a plague before the Lord” (Numbers 14:37).
Lord, sometimes it’s very difficult to be a positive person. Give me the faith to always realize that you are positively in charge. Amen.
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