Text: Deuteronomy 1:21 (NLT)

“This seemed like a good idea to me, so I chose twelve scouts, one from each of your tribes.”

Moses is without a doubt one of the greatest leaders in History. Handpicked by God to lead the Israelites out of their captivity in Egypt through the desert to the promised land, Moses had a big responsibility. There are also many miracles that God performed through his servant Moses. He definitely ranks as one of the first people I’d like to meet when I get to heaven :).

Yet, even Moses was prone to mistakes as a leader. In this particular passages, Moses shares that, “I chose” those who would be sent into the land to scout it out. Now I dont’ know what went into Moses’ choices but scriptures record that when the scouts returned only two gave encouragment to the Israelites to go into the land and conquer it. 10 of the scouts embarked on a tale of demoralization because of their fear and faithlessness.

It gives hope for all of us who are in leadership positions that when it comes to decisions there will always be times when we make mistakes – or when we entrust others with a task and they will fail. That doesn’t necessarily make us bad leaders – but we do need to learn from it and move on. God dealt with the rebellious Israelites, (and spies) who eventually didn’t make it to the promised land but Joshua and Caleb, two other spies (that Moses has picked!) became instrumental in Israel’s final march to victory 40 years later. In fact, Joshua became the next leader of Israel after Moses.

The point? Don’t give up when you make a mistake as a leader. Learn from the failure and invest in the success of that choice and submit to God’s continued leading.