Choosing God's Best

As Moses neared the end of his life, he gathered the people and gave them one last strong encouragement to follow God. He laid out the covenant between Israel and God before them including all the blessings and all the curses depending on the choices they made. Moses had given nearly his entire life to leading these people. He put himself between God’s wrath and their foolishness imploring God to give them another chance. Now, as he was about to die, he gave them all the wisdom he had gathered through the years of leading them. He wanted so much for them to experience God’s blessings, yet he was aware they would make wrong choices and experience God’s judgments on them.

“This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Deuteronomy 30:19-20

While this is a direct covenant between Israel and God, I wonder if there may also be wisdom for me today. I wonder how many times I have walked away from God’s blessings – his best for me – because I was distracted by other things. Every day I make a ‘kazillion’ choices. First thing in the morning I choose if I will take time to read and meditate on God’s Word before getting into the business of my day. I choose whether I will take time to pray, send a note of encouragement to someone I know is struggling, spend time with and/or do something special for my spouse, make a phone call, send a check to an agency serving the poor and needy among us, or go myself and serve the poor and needy among us. And all of those choices may occur in my first waking hour of the day.

How do I know if I am making the right choices? What wisdom guides me? I don’t have a Moses standing before me telling me what to do. Ah, but I do have the Holy Spirit within me guiding my thoughts if I am open to that. And I do have the ‘Big Ten’ recorded in Scripture as well as the teachings of Jesus regarding those commandments. As I gather all this wisdom together and apply it to my day, it may change the focus and what determines success at the end of the day.

It would be easy to say that I had a good day if I was able to check everything off my ‘to do’ list. And it is easy to kick myself around if I don’t accomplish my list. But what about God’s list for me on any given day? When I get to the end of my day, what does God count as a successful day? “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8

As I have pondered and meditated through Deuteronomy, I have found a God who is concerned with what wisdom we are following. He is concerned for the poor, the fatherless, the widow – those who are vulnerable in society around us. It seems that he blesses us in order for us to share his blessings with others, not for us to horde it all for ourselves. He is concerned with justice, yet he shows mercy to us when we fall short of living holy lives. It seems that he wants to delight in us and give us everything we could desire – a land flowing with milk and honey – yet, we are so quickly ‘spoiled’ by his goodness and turn to serving ourselves instead of others.

And I wonder, when will I get it? When will I understand that this God who wants to delight in me will provide everything I need and more if I turn my heart to him and follow his wisdom? When will I get over my selfish desires and my self-centered ways and become his ‘adopted child’ who desires to be like him. I am, in Moses’ words, a stiff-necked people. And I wonder how many blessings I miss because I am focused on ‘saving myself’ instead of trusting God’s wisdom and leadership to save me.

It seems Moses understood all of this and he left this world with these words, “Choose life!” Today, Lord, I choose life! I choose to love you and to follow you. Open my eyes to see your agenda, not mine, and to give freely to others because you have given so freely to me, whether it is financial, emotional, or just time. Amen.