Caleb's reward and Acsah's request...

Joshua chapter 15 begins a long list of the territory given to each of the tribes of Israel. It could be tempting to skip over it and not take the time to read carefully through the detailed lists of towns, villages and geographical features. But right in the middle of the chapter (vs 13 - 19) is a section about one family's attitude to embracing their inheritance. The first person we meet is a man called Caleb.

Caleb is already an old man, eighty five years old, by this point in the story. In fact, apart from Joshua, Caleb is the only older person to enter the promised land; all the others had died in the wilderness, because of their rebellion against God forty years earlier. Joshua and Caleb, two of the spies who originally checked out the land, were the only ones who trusted the Lord and said, "With God on our side, we can do this."

I wonder how Caleb felt about the fact that he had spent forty years trudging through the desert because of other people's unbelief and poor decisions. It would have been so easy for him to have felt resentment and bitterness about all the wasted years of that four decade delay. Now, at last, he is in the promised land, but his opportunity to take possession of an inheritance comes at a point where he is elderly, and probably conscious of his somewhat limited future in the land.

It seems, however, that Caleb chose not to look at the losses of the past, but to focus instead on the possible gains of the future. He didn't dwell on the many years already behind him, but set his sights on the quality of the years still remaining. "Give me this mountain," he said.  Caleb, at 85 years of age, still demonstrates the principle character quality that he was known for: he followed God wholeheartedly. (Joshua 14 vs 6 - 12)

In chapter 15, we read of how Caleb went on to conquer giants and claim the hill country as his own. He was also diligent to procure a worthy husband and an inheritance for his daughter, Acsah.
Acsah herself, in verse 19, exemplifies another principle to embracing our inheritance. You see, just because something is an inheritance doesn't mean that it is perfect. It may still come with challenges and work to be done. Acsah realised that her inheritance consisted of land in the Negev - a dry desert region. Rather than becoming ungrateful about that, Acsah sought a way to embrace and make the most of that inheritance. She approached her father again, and she asked him to grant her springs of water to compensate for the dryness of the terrain. Sure enough, Caleb gave her two different water sources - the upper and lower springs.

This father and daughter speak to me of two possible mistakes we could make concerning the embracing of our inheritance.

• If we're "older," it could be easy for us to resist the effort involved in taking new ground; easy for us to reason that we're not going to be around much longer, and to wonder if we really want to invest time and effort in claiming an inheritance that we won't be able to enjoy for long. Caleb didn't do that; he wholeheartedly embraced what God still had for him in his older years.
• If we're younger, it could be easy for us to cast a superficial glimpse at our inheritance and to feel ingratitude or self pity because of its limitations. Perhaps it doesn't look as impressive or potentially fruitful as the ministry of another person who's been around longer than we have. But Acsah didn't do that; she looked at what she'd been given, she reflected on how she could make the most of it, and she boldly asked her father for even more.

Embracing our inheritance isn't a passive thing; it involves effort and faith... but God is with us each step of the way.