“Please drive the highlighted route.” repeated the feminine voice from the GPS. I was traveling a new road and my GPS map was old. Sometimes I hear the command from the GPS and see the display “recalculating” because I have decided I know a better way and have not followed the GPS commands.
In Deuteronomy 30: 11-20, God tells the Israelites what He is commanding is not too difficult or beyond their reach. It is not so far away that they will need to send someone to retrieve it from heaven or the sea. It is very near. It’s in their heart if they just obey. He spells out the choice between life and prosperity or death and destruction. If the Israelites will love God, walk in His ways and keep His commands they will live, increase and be blessed in the Promised Land. But if they turn their hearts away, are disobedient and worship other gods, they will certainly be destroyed and not live in the Promised Land. God is very plain when He says, “Now choose life... love God, listen to His voice and hold fast to Him.”
God knew the Israelites would be distracted by the freedom and riches in the Promised Land. They would tempted with the temporary pleasures of the new world they were entering. He warned them, prepared them and told them the danger and the consequences.
Yet, the Israelites strayed. They thought they had a better way, than God’s way. They wanted to be like the other peoples that lived nearby. They wanted the immediate satisfaction instead of the everlasting reward God promised.
I remember teaching a young toddler that the square block goes through the square hole, round block through the round hole and so forth. The child was very intelligent and I’m positive understood the concept. Yet the child insisted that the square block go through the round hole. The child became so frustrated that I decided this was not play. It was a life lesson.
We are so like this child. We don’t outgrow our thirst for our own rules. We want to make our own world with our own rules but our rules won’t get us nor keep us in the Promised Land. Sometimes we can make an adequate life for ourselves creating a world in our own design, but is it the Best Life?
There is life and then there’s Abundant Life, the Promised Land, the Best Life, if you will. God wants us to have relationship, blessings and peace. The world I create will only mimic the true relationship, blessing and peace. I will create a world of the temporary, a world where life can change direction in a second. God will give me a world of eternal, everlasting and certain. God will give me the Best Life.
It seems that the lesson from these verses is positioning. I need to establish that God is in position to lead my life and I need to follow. I only get myself into situations, complications and circumstances when I position myself at the lead of my life.
G od
P osition
S ituation
Today I reconfirm that God is in the lead position in my life situation. I need to update that relationship on a daily, or more often, basis. My experience with God so far, and the Scriptures, tell me that a better life, the Abundant Life, awaits me when I walk in His ways. Obedience leads to the best life possible. I’ve learned in life, the hard way by using my own rules, that it’s simpler, easier and better if I just do it God’s way.
Love & Listen
Keep & Hold
Choose & Do
Decide & Act
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