“Life would be so much better if I could just get people to do what I want them to do.” Much of our stress and frustration is due to wishing, expecting and trying to get people to do what we want them to do.
Deuteronomy chapter 11 reminds us that God is the only one in existence who has the power to make people to do what He wants them to do…and He doesn’t do it! He lets people choose (Deuteronomy 11:26) God spells out our options and the consequences for those options. He also urges and encourages us toward the better choice. But He won’t make that choice for us.
If God can save us difficulty and problems by making us do what we’re suppose to do, why doesn’t He?
When I was younger, I used to think that success was dependent upon talent, or skill, or wealth, or connectedness. I thought those who were successful merely had the right stuff and/or were in the right place at the right time.
There’s no doubt that these things are helpful, but the older I get, the more I’ve come to believe that success is much more about being persistent and consistent. Persistence and consistency are the two inseparable keys to success…both temporally and spiritually. In his book by the same name, Eugene Peterson called it “a long obedience in the same direction.”
When things are good, it’s easy to believe we deserve it, or that our good fortune is a direct result of our efforts and importance. We may not say it out loud, but inwardly we feel the blessings are confirmation that we’re personally deserving of such good things.
But Deuteronomy chapter 9 reminds us…don’t get a big head! Here, Moses tells the children of Israel not to assume that they are somehow better than the nations they are preparing to defeat. In fact, Moses reminds them that they are just as stubborn and rebellious as these other nations. Moses even goes on to remind them of incident after incident in which they stubbornly rebelled against God.
“Alright! Alright! I heard you the first time!” These are the words I would think to myself when I was a teenager and my parents were telling me something over and over again, so I wouldn’t forget it. (It was probably safer to think these words, then to say them out loud to my parents.)
In Deuteronomy chapter 8, God, through Moses, is doing the same thing any good parent does…repeating His instructions over and over. And like any good parent, It’s not because He thinks we don’t understand. It’s because He’s stressing the importance of what He’s saying, as well as the need to remember it and apply it.
Marie Kondo has given rise to the recent trend in decluttering our living spaces. Marie encourages people to get rid of anything that doesn’t give them joy.
We all have have things we don’t really need and no longer give us joy. We walk around the stuff, trip over the stuff, and eventually become blind to the stuff. Though it adds no value to us, we still hold onto this stuff.
The same thing can happen in our spiritual lives. We can accumulate things that clutter and steal our joy spiritually. They are things that add no spiritual value, but we continue to walk around, trip over, and hold onto them.
Just before a big game, a coach will gather the players together in the locker room and go over instructions about the attitudes and behaviors they will need to win the game.
You would think that Moses would give the same kind of locker room instructions just before sending the Children of Israel across the Jordon river to fight for the Promised Land. But that’s not the case!
In Deuteronomy chapter 6, instead of telling them what they need to do to win the battle, Moses tells them what they need to do after they have won the battle. He warns them not about the struggle, but about the success.
It’s true. Once we’ve achieved the success we’ve desired, we must be even more on our guard, for complacency is much more threatening than combat. Struggle heightens your senses, while success dulls them. When we’re in need, we acknowledge our dependency on God. When our bellies and our bank accounts are full, we act out of self-sufficiency.
So Moses reminds them that when the battle is over, and they are living in the peace and prosperity they always dreamed of, then it’s even more important that they…
Revere God as the One and only sovereign Creator and Sustainer.
Respond obediently and promptly to His commands and directions.
Recall all He has done for them.
This sounds like a good reminder/warning for us. Compared to the rest of the world, we are very wealthy…even the poorest of us. We live in an abundance that much of the world can’t imagine. We’ve been blessed with this, but not guaranteed it.
So don’t forget to revere the God of your blessings. Don’t forget to respond obediently to His commands and directions. And don’t forget to recall His mighty interventions in your life.
Remember when you were a kid and the sight of fireflies, shooting stars, and rainbows would cause you to stop in awe? Remember when your parents seemed so big and powerful that the sound of their voice would quickly snap you into obedience?
As we grow up, we tend to lose our child-like sense of awe, as well as our desire and willingness to obey authority.
We can also lose our sense of awe and obedience when it comes to our relationship with God. We lose our awe of God when we become too familiar with Him or too indifferent to Him. We lose our willingness to obey God when our self-motivated desires dampen our desire for prompt and complete obedience to Him.
In Deuteronomy chapter 5, Moses reminds the children of Israel that the key to their relationship with God, as well as their success in the world, would come from maintaining their awe of Him and their obedience to Him.
Awe and obedience should still be the core of our life and relationship with God. Without them, our life will lack power, passion, and production for God. Perhaps that’s why Jesus put such an emphasis on becoming child-like…as opposed to childish. (Matt. 18:3) (1 Cor. 13:11)
Our lives need to be based in awe over God’s indescribable greatness and obedience to His perfect Word. And one will prompt the other. If we reclaim our awe of God, it will renew our obedience to Him. If we improve our obedience to God, it will increase our awe of Him.
Have you lost your awe over the greatness of God? Do you find yourself treating obedience to God more as an option than a mandate? Pick one to focus on and the other will not be far behind.
Focus! If you’re a photographer, this means to train your lens on the most important part of the photograph, making it sharp and clear. If you’re someone with a touch of ADHD and facing a lot of demands, it means to train your mind on the most important thing at the moment…so as to not get sidetracked or pulled away.
As the Children of Israel prepared to cross over into the Promised Land, I imagine their hearts and minds were crowded with lots of thoughts, fears, excitements, dreams, anticipation, apprehension, memories, etc.
I started playing guitar at the age of nine and very quickly was playing music wherever I could. All through my high school years, I spent my weeknights rehearsing and my weekends playing in clubs and bars around the area. My hair was long, I hung out with a questionable crowd, and I’m sure there were many who thought I would never amount to anything.
But at the age of twenty-two, I gave my life to Christ. I stopped playing in the bars, and gradually got plugged in at church. God continued to grow me, and eventually called me into full-time ministry. The kid who didn’t care about God, religion, or education is now a teaching and counseling pastor with two graduate degrees. Who would have believed it!
Ever fell like you’re wasting your time? Like you’re getting nowhere fast? This must have been what it felt like to wander in the wilderness for forty years.
In this age of instant text, google searches, and three minute microwave popcorn, wandering in the wilderness seems like such a waste of time.
But Deuteronomy chapter 2 shows us that God doesn’t waste anything! He uses even the difficult times in our life to teach us and prepare us.
