Daily Devotion, January 15, 2020

Devotion:

Read Deuteronomy 6:4-12.

For our children to understand the family stories from before the year 2000, we often begin with the sentence, “Now you have to remember, this was before cell phones.”

Similarly, parents living in the promised land perhaps had to begin their family stories with, “Life hasn’t always been this good.”

God had asked the people to teach their children the story of God’s faithfulness. God was faithful to deliver them from their enslavement in Egypt. God was faithful during the exodus from Egypt. God was with them and provided for them during their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. And God kept the promise to lead them into the land “flowing with milk and honey.” 

The verses in Deuteronomy 6:4-5 are known as the “Shema” for the Hebrew people. Jesus knew these verses well. Verses 4-12 call us into relationship with God and can be summed up with five words, “hear, love, teach, live, and remember.” God is asking from us everything God has already done and continues to do for us. God hears, loves, teaches, lives and gives us life, and always remembers us. 

If one reverses each of these words, this covenant relationship between God and humankind would be broken. Self-centeredness would rule our own days and we would soon realize how finite we are.

Frederick Buechner says, “The final secret, I think, is this: that the words ‘You shall love the Lord your God’ become in the end, less a command than a promise. And the promise is that, yes, on the weary feet of faith and the fragile wings of hope, we will come to love him at last as from the first he has loved us—loved us even in the wilderness, especially in the wilderness, because he has been in the wilderness with us. He has been in the wilderness for us. He has been acquainted with our grief. And, loving him, we will come at last to love each other too so that, in the end, the name taped on every door will be the name of the one we love.”

Personal Worship Option:

Dear God, you are forever faithful unto us. Forgive me because sometimes it is so easy to forget that all of life’s blessings are gifts from you. Today, help me to remember and see all of your blessings. Thank you. Amen.