Let's Go!

Joshua and Caleb. Fresh from slavery. Ready for freedom and dirt of their own. Two of twelve sent to spy out the land the Hebrews once inhabited and were once again promised after a great deliverance...
They looked, they saw, they tasted, and they wanted to take back their land. The land was theirs after all. The God who delivered them from the hand of Pharoah, who generations before that, sent father Abraham from his home territory to find, said the land was theirs. These two knew it, trusted it, trusted the mighty hand of God and were ready. Ready for victory, ready to take back what was theirs before famine and oppression changed the course of their history.
They were ready! Spears in strong hands, adrenaline and anticipation coursing through their blood and veins. They stood in front of Moses, mediator between mighty God and mortal man. A multitude of Hebrew humanity amassed behind them as they gave their report... the land was good, all God promised! Theirs to take back.
hey raised their spears, muscles tense and tight with assurance. "Let's go!" they shouted with a stomp! A war cry, loud and strong, much the victory chant the Hebrews gave with shoulder checks, fist bumps and high fives, as the refugees rejoiced when they left the dead first born of Egypt behind them... Egyptian treasures in their carts and packs. 
"Let's go!" they screamed, veins popped out of strong necks, heads and spears raised to the glorious God of heaven...
But no...
No response... No reciprocation... No chant back this time. 
No "Let's go, let's go, let's go!" like before... when the masses shouted it in awe and in frenzy to hurry along the living littles as they walked between a wall of water on dry land.
No, "Let's go!" like before... in unbelievable, earth trembling, mind-blowing, hands-on-head, fists-to mouth, glorious, victorious celebration when the sea swallowed up their enemies in front of their thunderstruck eyes. 
No.
No, "Let's go." 
Not a whisper. They stood, the two of them, in the eerie silence...
Looking, in question... in confusion... in disquiet, first to each other, then to Moses, they saw the answer in his furious and forlorn eyes. Mighty arms lowered, spears dropped, they turned and saw... 
They said, "Let's go," but ten of twelve spies said, "No."
No way. No how. No go.
They said there were giants. They said it was impossible. 
They said, "No go," and God said fine. No faith to go, no Promise Land for you. 
Save two. Two mighty warriors. Two men among the masses, strong to fight, ready for battle, God at their helm. 
These two would taste victory over more enemies. They would take back the land of their ancestors.
They would... in time. 
Forty years they waited while the doubters died off, the lot of them. Forty years Joshua and Caleb waited. Forty years they trained the youth not to be weak, slave-minded victims, but God's chosen, victors.
They waited and they watched plague, and snake bite, and marauders and God's mighty hand take one after another, in groups and individually, to their sandy graves. 
Then there was one. One last doubter. One last coward. One of the twelve. The last of the lot. Then there were none.
Then Moses went to the mountain top and saw the Promised Land and told them to be strong and courageous. Very strong and courageous.
Then they said, "Let's go!" 
Their army was with their God, victory was in their hand, and they proceeded into the Promised Land!
​"Let's go!"

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