When you do a read through the Bible in a year plan, Deuteronomy is another one of those books that can be easy to breeze through. The children of Israel are preparing to enter the promised land, but before they do Moses gives them a history lesson. He recounts the story of what they have gone through in the wilderness. As I read it, all I could think was, I just read this and I don’t need the recap. It is still fresh on my mind. But this year I am trying better to not just speed through stuff like that, so I began to think about why Moses was doing this.
Moses was giving the children a history lesson to help them remember what they had been through, and what earlier generations had been through. He knew that conquering the promised land was not going to be easy, so he was recounting the stories of how God had always provided for them. Moses also reminded them of how God punished those that did not follow his commands. He wanted those stories to be fresh on their minds when they entered the promised land. He knew that remembering how God provided in the past would encourage them that God would provide for them in the future.
About a year ago, when I found out the school where I worked was closing and I would need to find another job it would have been easy to panic. The one thing that enabled me to not go into a full-blown panic was remembering how God had taken care of me in the past. When I was in college, I found out a week before school started that I was losing most of my hours at my job and needed to find a new one. God opened up an opportunity that not only gave me a job, but also freed me up to do an internship with Charisma Church. As I searched for a job last year, I would remind myself of that and it would bring me peace.
We shouldn’t dwell in the past, but remembering it can encourage us to get through where we are. Life has storms and we are going to need some encouragement. Moses said in Deuteronomy 11:18, “So commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these words of mine. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders.” There is so much that God has already done for me, and I know when the next storm comes He will provide again. But in the moment, I’m sure I will need a reminder.
until next time…