Deuteronomy 12 to 15
Sometimes what comes out of my pencil into my journal and
what pours out onto the screen is something completely different, and I realize
there is always more to hear. Always.
God calls Israel
to destroy completely all the high places.
“The places
where the nations you are dispossessing
worship their gods.” (Ch 12:2)
At the end of Ch 11, God promises continual rain in its
season, as a blessing of obeying His commands.
God Naming Himself as the Bringer of rain, the Quencher of thirsts. A contrast to the worship of local deities
and their alleged kingdom reign over the elements.
As Israel begins to move into the promised land they are
to make sure no shrines, temples, high places, sacred stones, or idols remain
that might tempt the people’s heart to give glory and thanks to any other
god.
God would choose a centralized place in Canaan and put
His Name there for His dwelling. (Ch
12:4) To that place everyone must go with their offerings.
All along on this journey
God had been giving decrees
about what settled life would look like,
about worship and work and warnings.
So many warnings.
Everything
pointing to this moment,
the fulfilment of God’s Promise.
This good, good land.
Ch 12:7 “There,
in the presence of the LORD your God,
you and your families
shall eat
and shall rejoice
in everything you have put your hand to,
because the LORD your God has blessed you.
10 And He will give your rest
From all your enemies
Around you
So that you will live in safety.”
Here in these chapters
we hear a new sound.
One of rest and joy.
But these have some conditions.
Rest and joy are the outcomes
of having followed the decrees, commands, and directions
of covenant living.
Conscious and deliberate choosing and path walking.
Not looking to the right
or to the left
or picking up shiny things.
Bringing single minded worship to God and God alone.
Rest and joy
that come as a result of hard walking
on narrow paths
with careful guarding
of sacred heart and soul space.
I imagine what the promise of rest must have sounded like
to a wandering nation with no place to call home.
To always be on your way somewhere
for 40 years
but never arriving.
Til now.
Being at the doorstep of Canaan.
Rest.
Joy.
A Promise fulfilled.
Ch 12:18 “ Eat in the Presence of God
and rejoice before the LORD your God
in everything you put your hand to.”
Because settling in
Means no longer walking.
What does that mean for my story today?
What does having no other gods mean for me?
Because I don’t have those do I?
Or do I?
Do I depend on rain from other sources?
But maybe I do.
Having no other god.
Depending and relying on myself.
Does my heart and my soul become fragmented when I get pulled
into so many directions in life and in my walk?
We all have a multitude of pieces that make up the composite of our
identity. Parent, child, employee, sister, friend, daughter, aunt.
Fragmented.
But I am not what I do.
I am a child of God.
When we acknowledge God as the sole bringer of rain,
and we don’t hustle to dig wells to find our own water,
quench our own thirst,
then a certain kind of rest takes a hold of us.
Wholeness.
I think about whether the “rest” is a physical thing, or
something that will manifest itself in our heart and in our souls.
I realize that this year long journey for me is very much
a search for a new way of living. A new
way of thinking with peace as its default setting. A more consistent thread and way of placing
my footsteps on this winding road. I sense that this same single minded focus,
to which God calls and commands the nation of Israel, has that pattern.
And then in the Presence of God we will have joy.
We will be able to rejoice
in everything we have put our hands to
because God blesses us.
Not because peace is our default setting,
But because of Grace.
This Promise come true
Becoming real
With spring and fall rains
And sowing and reaping
And rest and joy.
And peace.
And Grace.
Always Grace.
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