Joshua had big shoes to fill. The biggest.

Moses was unlike anyone else. God chose him to lead His people out of slavery in Egypt. He even spoke to him face-to-face. The brightness of Moses’ face after speaking to God was too much for the people to bear looking at. It was through Moses that God made known His commands for His people. Moses was Israel’s savior.

But for all that Moses got right in his obedience to God and leadership of His people, he had failed at a critical moment by relying on his own strength in his anger. He would not be allowed to enter the Promise Land. For forty years, Moses had led the people in their futile wandering in the desert, as the adults who had refused to take the land died.

If the people had trusted God, and taken Him at His Word, they could have been settled and prosperous by the time Moses’ death approached. Young Joshua and Caleb were the only two men to stand up to the people and tell them they should go in and take the land God had promised them.

But the people were afraid and refused to listen. Although they were awed by the produce of the land, they were terrified of its inhabitants. The ten other men who had spied out Canaan with Joshua and Caleb told the people that there were giants living there. The Israelites believed that they were like grasshoppers compared to them, because that is what the cowardly spies told them.

Joshua and Caleb trusted God would keep His Word.

Forty years later, Moses knew he was dying, and he passed leadership to Joshua. Joshua would lead the people into Canaan, the fertile land God had promised their forefathers.

It was a weighty responsibility. There were many people to govern, and they had no idea how to be masters of their own land. They had spent 40 years as nomads, following 400 years as slaves. The land they would enter to take was full of settled and powerful peoples.

Moses reminded Joshua what was most important:  It was God who had promised them the land, and it was God who would give it to them.

Moses admonished and reassured Joshua in front of all the people. He made clear what was to happen next: Joshua would lead the people; God would lead Joshua.

The responsibilities that fall on us can be daunting, and we never know for sure what tomorrow holds. But nothing surprises God, and He has it all under control. Pain and loss are inevitable, but we can trust God to carry us through. He has not promised to make it easy, but He will make it worthwhile.

When I feel like the weight of all I should do is crushing me, it is because I have wrestled the burden away from God, my God who already has a plan in place, for His glory and my benefit. I don’t have to bear the weight, because God is already carrying it.

I need to let go, trust, and follow. Without fear.

Melinda VanRy is a Writer, Homeschool Mom, Mental Health and Faith Blogger, who lives in Rural Central New York, closer to Canada than NYC, not far from Lake Ontario. It’s her goal, in another season of life, to live on the water.