A Thought for Tuesday 6/25/13

“Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today, lest … you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth’”.  Deuteronomy 8:11, 12a, 17

In this discourse Moses lists off all the things the Lord had done for Israel up to this point just before they were to cross over into the Promised Land.  Moses was reminding the people that when they get fat and happy, they should be on guard against also getting “sassy” and a little too full of themselves and forget that all they have received and will receive will have come from the hand of the Lord himself.  They didn’t really listen, of course …

And it is an easy thing for us all to get a little too filled and forget what it was like to be hungry; a little too comfortable and forget what it is like to strive.  It happens this way too often that once we have achieved what we set out to achieve, what we set up for ourselves to accomplish, that we forget the Mighty Hand that delivered us.

We typically cannot appreciate Israel’s history because we are too far removed.  Living safely within the United States it is even more difficult to appreciate what living in bondage is about.  We can, however, read more about Israel’s history and find some kind of connection between their experiences and our own.  There is truly “something for everyone” within that story, something we can take a hard lesson from, even some parallel to our own experiences.  In this we are likely to find those moments when we thought the Lord was absent but soon discover He was there the whole time; we had only learned to take Him for granted – or – it was we who had strayed too far off course.

It is never too late to make a course correction and get back on track.  Reconnect with the Law, and find the Lord in our obedience to His judgments, His statutes, His commandments.  That is the mark of His people, to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Deut 6:5), and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18).  The perfection of the Law is summed up by Jesus as He reiterates these commandments.  It is who we are.

Blessings,
Michael