Deuteronomy: Trust

As Deuteronomy moves to a close, there is a long section of blessings and curses. This was common in ancient suzerain covenants and serves as a "wrap up" for the Torah. Basically, it's a recognition of "do X get Y" at the hands of God. Yet, it is such a staggering summary of life choices, international powers shifts and natural phenomena that to reduce the Torah to a linear equation of "do X get Y" seems totally preposterous.

That is why 29:29 jumps off the page at me. "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law."

So much of life is out of my control. I have little to no influence over much that shapes my life. Yet there are things that I can choose. I can choose where to put my trust, how I will react to injustice, and how to express compassion. That which originates within
my heart and mind, I can control. These choices belong to me - and for those choices the Father revealed his will. For the rest of life that I can't control, there is trust. That portion of life with its "secret things belong[s] to the Lord our God".

Perhaps the great task of life is recognizing into which category each decision falls - within my realm of control and therefore guided by the revealed will of God or outside of my realm of control and therefore to be trusted in the hands of the Father.

Romans 3:1-8; Entrusted

"You have been entrusted with the very words of God." Paul starts out the chapter with a perspective that it is an honor to be Jewish. Of all the nations, they had received special privilege. They had received the revelation of God.

Throughout the centuries people have died to preserve it, been tortured for putting it into the vernacular, and mistreated for mishandling it. Though many of those actions were unjust and did not represent the God who gave the revelation, it does indicate the value of the revelation itself. What other entity on earth has been held in such esteem?

As a young missionary I was placed my Bible under my chair while in a meeting. A visitor who was not a Christian regaled me for the action. How could the teach put the word of God on the ground? How could a missionary show such little respect for the revelation? I did not commit the error twice.

Yet I have to question if my attitude towards the revealed will of God looks any different from an unbelievers? Do my actions demonstrate that I cherish and esteem the revelation that God gave to humankind? Do my actions line up with my beliefs which I base upon this revelation? Or am I simply content to keep a book out of the dirt but not hold it in my heart?