Midnight Quills

Wow, nice long chapter this one – and exceptionally disturbing and depressing.

It actually starts out lovely. Follow the word of God and you’ll be blessed. There’s this lovely list of blessings that will be poured out upon the Israelites if they just stick to what God tells them to do – I’ll come back to them.

Then, though, comes a list of curses. First, it’s basically an opposite run down of the blessings. Where they will be blessed, they now will be cursed if they don’t follow God.

…And then some.

In my bible, there’s almost two pages of curses that will fall upon the Israelites if they don’t stick to this, and it just gets worse and worse, right down to being besieged so desperately that they will turn on and cannibilise their own families. It’s crazy.

It’s also serious. If ever there was a statement that shows just how serious God is about sin, it’s what’s said in this chapter. We may not necessarily need to have so much fear today that we might end up in a position of cannibilism, but there are definitely synchronous situations that could be related back to this chapter.

But there’s enough negativity throughout this book, why focus on that when suddenly we get a vision of just what God actually wants for us?

That’s what I take from the list of blessings. Read this, and see what it is God wants – what he would like our lives to be like, if we would just follow him and listen to him. That’s basically what this comes down to – in fact, that’s almost the core message that can be taken from this entire book of the law (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy). God wants us to listen to him, and to follow him – and when we do, then he can give us the life that he wants for us.

You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.
The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock – the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.
You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. ~ Deuteronomy 28:3-6

That’s just the beginning – it just keeps going.

Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will fear you. ~ Deuteronomy 28:10

How can we read this and not realise how much God loves his children. God wants nothing but the best for his children – and that’s us.

Last week I was standing in Church, and as I’ve mentioned recently, I’ve been going through some spiritual and emotional struggles, but I was just laying my heart down on the altar before God, and he gave me a message. He reminded me that he has accepted – he used the word adopted – me into his family, as his child. He has signed the paperwork, and taken me into his arms as his own child. As the perfect father, then, he wants the best for me, just like he wanted the best for the Israelites.

How can we not love him and want to be the best for him, in return?