A DIFFERENT SPIRIT

The Call Centre industry in Kenya is young and was already faced with its own difficulties before the political chaos that rocked our nation after the elections. The few of us who had been privileged to spy the land saw that it was a good land, and many begun opening up fledgling call centres in the hope of cashing in on the milk and honey. However, with the challenge of finding clients exacerbated by the post election violence I am beginning to hear whining and complaining among many. Some wishing they had invested in another business or a different venture. They have spied the land, and surely it flows with milk and honey, but the challenges that stand in the way of the promise seem too difficult to bear.

Numbers 13 & 14 is the same thing. The spies loved the land but the price to be paid to attain it was not considered equivalent to the reward. They said the people dwelling there were strong, the cities were fortified and large so taking them was going to be a challenge, and there were giants there! Now the instructions they had been given by Moses were to spy along with everything else these listed here:

 Whether the land is rich or poor, good or bad
 Whether the people are weak or strong, few or many
 Whether the cities are camps or strongholds

The land was the promise, the people were the challenge and the cities where the obstacles. They went out in the hope that the Land would be good, the people weak and living in camps. Uuuuhhhhh… Not so!!! The greater the reward, the greater the challenges.

When God was asking them to go spy the land, he wanted them to focus on the goodness of it, the profitability of it. He wanted them to see the Milk and the Honey, the Sugar, spice and all things nice! But true to form, they saw the work that had to be done. The fortified cities and the giants and they immediately concluded “We were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight” how terrible! And do you know why they saw themselves as grasshoppers in light of all the challenges? Because they had taken God out of the equation. Because had they acknowledged the help of their God, after giving that report they would have said what Caleb said “Let us go up at once and take possession for we are well able to overcome it”

Kenyans in the Call Centre industry, believe in the Lord your God for he is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all you can think or imagine (Eph 3:20). Don’t look at your own ability, for surely you will see yourself as a grasshopper in light of all the challenges the industry is facing, but see yourself hidden in God. It is no longer you who live but Christ who lives in you. Therefore let us go up at once and take possession of the global outsourcing industry for we are well able to overcome it!

Look at what Joshua and Caleb say in Ch 14 vs 7-8 “The land we passed through to spy is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, then He will bring us into this land, and give it to us, a land which flows with milk and honey”

What are you seeing when you look into the outsourcing industry in Kenya? The good of the land or the challenges? And when you have taken stock of the challenges, do you stagger at the promise or do you consider your God well able to bring it to pass?

And the Lord had a testimony regarding Caleb son of Jephunneh “But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it” Numbers 14:24 Because he had a different spirit, a spirit that saw the good of the land, took stock of the challenges and concluded that God was more than able to give him the land, he inherited the land.

And you know the rest of the story…the spies who saw only the challenges and did not take into account the power of their God, and spread that bad report to the rest of Israel died that very day. And the others, all who were 20 years of age and above died in the wilderness, having roamed that same dry, barren place for 40 years. Going around in circles all their lives because they “despised” the land (Numbers 14:31). Do not despise the land that the Lord your God is giving you. Do not stagger at the promise because of the challenges before you. Our God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we can think or imagine and because of His power and in His name we are well able to take the land and overcome it.

Let all the Joshua’s and Caleb’s in the Kenyan Outsourcing Industry shout it with me:
“I AM OF A DIFFERENT SPIRIT”