Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent
Deuteronomy 4:9
Moses spoke to the people, “Take care, as you value your lives! Do not forget the things which you yourselves have seen, or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them, rather, to your children and to your children’s children.”
         God told Moses to look out on the good land beyond the Jordan, because Moses could not go in. Forty years of wandering would end for Moses half a mile this side of the promised land. God told him to commission Joshua to take his place as leader of the Israelites.
As Moses spoke to the people not yet crossed into their New World, he remembered and remembered and remembered. Eighty years since he noticed a burning bush near Mt. Horeb and decided that he “must turn aside and look at this great sight.” Yahweh and Moses have become intimate. Moses has learned to live with Yahweh instead of without him. He no longer speaks only for himself, but also for God.
He knows that the people who have followed Yahweh through darkness and light must remember where they came from, where they are going, and most of all that God has led them. The egos of these folks weren’t any different from ours; if they could take the credit, they would. And Moses, old and wise, knew better.
Born as a Jew, the foundation on which Jesus stood was rock solid. It was not solid because of all the desultory experiences and tangents and misplaced self-righteousness of all those millions of men and women. Of course not. God’s constancy in keeping his covenant, and the commitment of generation after generation of Jews to remember their Source, made it solid and strong.
Lord, you have strengthened the bars of our gates and blessed our children within them. You send forth your command to the earth, and the ice that you sometimes send just as quickly melts. You stir up your breezes, and the waters flow.  We glorify you, O Lord. How good it is to sing praises to our God. (Psalm 147)
http://christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1031
