March 20 – Deuteronomy 28-29

Below are my thoughts from the daily Bible reading of the West Side Church of Christ. Today’s reading comes from Deuteronomy 28-29. Before reading I invite you to pray and asked God to speak to you as you read his word.

If you had never read the Bible before doing this reading plan, and you were reading it like a novel where every page was new you would have lots of hope for the people of Israel. So far you have witnessed them come out of the slavery of the Egyptians. You have seen their weak faith; you have seen their moments of doubt, their question of God and Moses. You have seen them fearful and not trust that God was strong enough, so they wandered the wilderness for forty years. During that time God removed the older generation through death so that the next generation could inherit the land.

If you read chapter twenty-eight with that knowledge and no knowledge of what was to come, you would think their story would be all pointing to faith, to living out what God asked of them. But I don’t have that privilege. As I read just a few moments ago, as I thought about all the things God said he would do … my mind filled the void of what he did actually do. God promised siege … my mind went to King Nebuchadnezzar and his siege of Jerusalem some eight hundred plus years later. When God promised exile I thought of the Israelites living in the land of Babylon and later Persia. I know the story and I know that these aren’t empty threats that God made.

But I don’t know the rest of your story and my story. It is yet to be written. Let me ask you, how is it going to end? You still have the opportunity to decide how you story will end. Choose wisely.

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