The "Big-If"!

Dt 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

I've been doing my daily scripture reading in the book of Deuteronomy this week. You know Deuteronomy don't you? It's one of those Old Testament books at the front of your Bible where the pages stick together because it hasn't been read that much! On the scale of "interesting" Deuteronomy usually ranks up there with Leviticus or Numbers.

But I've discovered something powerful in the book of Deuteronomy. Basically, it's an extended speech delivered by Moses as the Israelites are just on the verge of crossing the Jordan river and entering the Promised Land - the land that they've been waiting for all through their forty year wandering in the wilderness. They've been promised over and over that this land will be beautiful - it will flow with "milk and honey." The land will take care of them. It will be a place abundant with peace and justice. It will provide for their every need, If…

And there's a "big if." Actually it's the "big if" we all face in life when we wander in the desert. Some of us may not even be aware that the "big if" exists. Or we may be aware of the "big if" but it so scares us because actually we've become accustomed to and comfortable with our desert and following through with the "big-if" means a radical departure from what we know, even if what we know is painful and certainly not what life could be.

So here's the "big if" that I've been reading about all week in the book of Deuteronomy. It starts with the Hebrew word - Shema - which simply means "hear." "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength."

Sure, you think. The Bible is supposed to say stuff life that. Yeah, yeah. We know. Love God and then life will be blessed. We've heard that before, we say, as our pain and our wandering continues. We live with a meager satisfaction that things in our life are "nice." But we know, because God never lets us forget, that life could be so much better.

Often that new life begins with a vision. Using your imagination you think to yourself, okay, I'm tired of the pain, God. What COULD this life be. And the thought occurs that you COULD work every day even every hour to achieve that life. And it occurs to you that even working hard wouldn't bring about the life you want. Because the life you want really isn't about work. It's about something else. It's more fundamental than that. It's about your inner-most spirit, your orientation to life itself, your orientation to, dare we utter it, God!

And in a moment, all of the things you're really not-so comfortable with because you're tired of the "nice" life seem insignificant because in God you've discovered a "land flowing with milk and honey." You've let go of the fears you have of all the giants on the other side of the Jordan river you've been told about. And you allow God to lead you. Holiness no longer seems like a burden. It's pleasant. Holiness is awesome! It's life-giving. It's walking with God and being in God's presence and living the will of God. And it's living as a free person in this world because you’re a slave to God (rather than a slave to all the thousands of other little gods in our lives).

That's Deuteronomy in a nutshell. A celebration of holiness. True life. An authentic, integral orientation toward a loving God. It's the life God wants you to have as he takes you to your promised land - IF - and it's a big "IF" - you can simply trust in the power and person of God.

(reposted from February 2005)