Daily Devotional • March 9
A Reading from Deuteronomy 8:1-10
1 “The entire commandment that I command you today you must diligently observe, so that you may live and increase and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. 2 Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. 3 He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 4 The clothes on your back did not wear out, and your feet did not swell these forty years. 5 Know, then, in your heart that, as a parent disciplines a child, so the Lord your God disciplines you. 6 Therefore keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him. 7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey, 9 a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. 10 You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you.
Meditation
Israel found it hard enough to obey God when they were in the wilderness — when they had virtually nothing else. Now, Moses was preparing them for their entry into the Promised Land where they would know plenty and prosperity. They had been fed physically by God through the miracle of the manna, and spiritually through the provision of his Word. They were humbled by their absolute dependence upon God. There is precious little to feed our pride when we cannot even feed ourselves. It is a reality, however, that prosperity and forgetfulness are the conjoined twins of the human experience. And when social and geographical change are thrown into the mix, humankind loses all restraint. We forget our dependence on the Lord, we forsake his ways, and we live life as if we were bent on destroying ourselves.
Our entire culture has become one of displacement and anonymity. We have become a nation of vocational gypsies whose only loyalty is to the next “best” offer. As a result, the safeguards and restraints of family, culture, and the church have been lost in our daily lives. The warning of Moses to the Israelites in the wilderness should ring loud and clear in our present lives. Like Jesus during the temptation in the wilderness, we are constantly tempted to forsake the commandments of God and exchange the love of God for the lust of our own hearts. As every participant in Alcoholics Anonymous declares, our salvation can only come from the Higher Power — the God of Jesus. When we forget his commandments, we cut ourselves off from the only source of the life we were created to live.
Chuck Alley is a retired Episcopal priest (St. Matthew’s, Richmond, Va.), and an adjunct associate professor of anatomy on the medical faculty of Virginia Commonwealth University. Avocationally, he is an avid woodworker.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
The Anglican Church of Canada
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Auburn, California
The Rev. Dr. Chuck Alley, former rector of St. Matthew’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, teaches anatomy at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical School.
