The longer you wait the steeper the climb. God promised Caleb that mountain when he was a younger man. Now the giants are entrenched high above him. And he is 40 years older. Caleb must overcome both giants and gravity.

On many of us who’ve put off pursuing promises from God, the earthward inertia is formidable. So much so that even when we rally to exert a new initiative, we are easily repelled by setbacks, a couple blows to the face, or disappointment.

There stands before us the same promise that inflamed our hearts in our youth - when our zeal for the Lord burned with fury.

Yet, it remains. Steep, towering. In our faces. Is it still ours, we wonder? Indeed it is. No change in God’s promise, nor in the means of its apprehension.

We must not imagine that it will require less of us than of Caleb. Giants and gravity, still. Maybe we expected those big, fat, juicy grapes from the giants’ orchards would roll down right beside our tents. That we’d make wine and make merry in the lowlands. Or, that because it’s been so long, the Lord would just rout the giants for us.

We should know by now that the promises God gives, we get as we go.

Caleb thought, "It’s mine! I’m going! In the Name of the Lord, I defy giants, I defy gravity, no matter the cost.”

Undaunted trust in God’s word, courage, and complete engagement of our whole selves, is the ticket. That unswerving resolve to apprehend that which the Lord will certainly give us - if we go.

Caleb went. His family lives in peace on their own land. He owns all the orchards now, and drinks wine as he pleases. Caleb is commonly seen gazing off in the distance, his hand resting on his sword. His view is spectacular.