BLESSED OR CURSED? (Deuteronomy 28)

I confess, I struggle with today's verses. What they seem to say don't connect with my experience.

The first verse says, All these blessings will come down on you and spread beyond you because you have responded to the Voice of God. (from Deuteronomy 28:1-6, MSG)

The second one says, God will send The Curse, The Confusion, The Contrariness down on everything you've tried to do until you've been destroyed and there's nothing left of you--all because of your evil pursuits that led you to abandon me. (Deuteronomy 28:20, MSG)

Black and white. Either/or. The chapter is written in a way that suggests that God blesses people who listen to his voice with material prosperity, and rains down disaster on people who disobey until until there is nothing left. 

I must say, I love the descriptions. Blessings that spread beyond me? Kind of like answers to prayer that are pressed down and running over, so much blessing that I leak and spill it and other around me are blessed too. I want to be that kind of person.

But I'm afraid I identify more with the feeling of confusion and contrariness, when life doesn't turn out the way I expected it to and fights what I want to do. I have a friend right now who probably would shout a loud "amen." She's stuck in a dangerous and discouraging job. She wants to write full time; she's close to getting a contract that would make that possible. At just this time--when her dream is within sight--her husband's salary was cut in half. Confused? Yes. Contrary? Definitely. But she's not involved with any evil pursuits.

I'm going to get all writerly on you and look at the words used.

People are blessed when they respond to the voice of God. In short, respond means to reply or react. Respond stops short of "obey."  It suggests that God and I are in a relationship, a conversation. He talks, and I not only listen, but I talk back. 

Relationship, not perfection. 

Abandon, not surprisingly, implies the opposite. A person who abandons God has given up control of her life to someone else. He not only has stopped listening, he no longer intends to obey. 

Disowns. Divorces. Abandons. Alienates. Choose your word.

I have no easy answer here, except to offer this hope: God longs for our response. If we feel that life is confusing and contrary, we can talk with him about it.

And a testimony: In the times I have felt the most confused and contrary, blessing has spilled from me to others. God has blessed others through me. 

WHAT DO I WANT FROM GOD (Deuteronomy 7)

God, on His part, will keep the covenant of loyal love he made with your ancestors: He will love you. He will bless you. He will increase you. (Deuteronomy 7:13, MSG)

Moses summarizes the blessings God will give to people who show their love by keeping His law:

• I will love you.
• I will bless you.
• I will increase you.

That list covers about everything I want and need. 

I crave love. I am a romantic; I write Christian romance, after all.  Although I bask in the love of my family and of my friends, above all I know that God loves me. 

I need God's blessing. I'm not talking about blessings of prosperity. I need His presence with me, His sustaining grace--His salvation.

I hope for God's increase. I hope for my sphere of influence to expand, I pray that God will use my oh-so-imperfect words and life to touch other's with God's love and His grace (see above two).

The next time you wonder what to ask for, for yourself or someone else, rely on God's promise: His love. His blessing. His increase. 

Amen.

BALAAM, SAINT OR SINNER? (Numbers 22-25)

Balaam is best remembered for his talking donkey. God gave a donkey a human voice! (I've always been more surprised that Balaam answered when the donkey spoke, as if it didn't surprise him.)

But I can't quite decide how I feel about the man. The king of the Moabites, Balak, called Balaam to pronounce curses on the Israelites.

Nothing strange about that. Israel's kings called in God's prophets, to hear God's word on the subject of their enemies. At times, the prophet didn't say what the king wanted to hear, any more than Balak wanted Balaam to bless Israel four separate times.

Although the Moabites worshipped Baal, it appears that Balaam worshipped Israel's God. He asked for seven whole-burnt-offerings (very levitical of him). He inquired of GOD, not of god, and pronounced the blessing God had for the Israelites.

Balak refused to pay Balaam, since he had failed to deliver.  The man suffered for doing God's will.

Up to this point, Balak sounds like a hero to me. Yes, he was willing to accompany Balak, to accept his money, but in the end, he gave God's message.

Definite hero material.

Then we get all the way to Revelation, where Jesus says to the church at Pergamum, "There are some among you who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality."

That part of the story is left out of Numbers. Perhaps greedy for the money Balak had promised him, Balaam pulled him aside. "I can't curse the Israelites. God won't let me. But this is what you can do to get them to bring God's anger on them all on their own. . ."  And he outlined his plan for the Moabite women to seduce the Israelite men. It worked brilliantly, and 24,000 people died.

Almost a hero . . . but he failed in the end.

No wonder Joshua and the Israelites killed him when the conquered the promised land.

TEAM WORK (Exodus 39)

Half of Exodus describes the work involved in building the Tabernacle and creating priestly garments. Only three people are mentioned by name: Bezalel, Oholiab, and Moses. Bezalel and Oholiab led a host of other craftsmen in the construction; Moses was relegated to day laborer, assembling the furnishings inside the Tabernacle according to God's instruction.

In addition to the anonymous craftsmen, anonymous women served at the entrance to the Tabernacle and wove linen and spun thread. 

Still--not everyone actually made something for service in the Tabernacle. Perhaps everyone gave to the building; they brought so much that the treasurers told them to stop with the offerings! (I doubt any building fund since then has had the same problem.)

But when time came to give credit for the job, Moses recorded, "The People of Israel . . . did it all."

Of course the major point is that they finished the job; not a detail was ignored.

But. . . they didn't all do it. And they certainly all do it all.

Maybe it's my American individualism. Even when I say "we went to the NBA finals last year!" I don't mean I, or the people of Oklahoma, went to the finals. The Thunder players and coaches' success rested on their talent and hard work. 

Maybe it's closer to the sense of "We won World War II." Everyone from the soldier on the front lines to the child collecting tin felt they were a part of the war effort. 

But do we think of church activities and worship as a team sport? That it takes everyone's participation to do it "all" and be blessed for it?

And what part do I play, bound to a nursing home as I am?

Let us each do something--so that together we can do it all. 

FEEL-GOOD PROMISE

At last!  After several days of struggling with subjects such as the murder of children and blessing our enemies, today I paused on a genuinely feel-good, it's-wonderful-to-be God's child kind of verse.  

In Exodus 15, Moses sang a song about crossing the Red Sea. Exodus 15:12-13 definitely draws a line between "them" and "us." The Earth swallowed up "them"--those miserable slave-owning, refusing to let go Egyptians. 

But "us?"  We are redeemed--today, by the lamb of God, as surely as the Passover lamb redeemed the Israelites. 

We are led by His love. Have you ever heard the quote, "The will of God will never lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you?" His love accompanies us, wherever we are.

He guides us. Day by day. I might like a map of the next six months (six years?) but He shows me what I need today.

We are under His protection. (That is one of the definitions of "blessing," by the way. I discovered that in my work on my Blessing Factor  book)

He is taking us to His holy pasture.  A pasture to rest and eat--where we are set apart.

Wow: redeemed, loved, guided, protected, set apart, provided for.

That's what God wants for you. Put it in your warm fuzzy file. 

WHEN YOUR ENEMY WANTS A BLESSING. . . (Exodus 12)

At last Pharaoh had had enough. It took the death of his firstborn son, but he couldn't get rid of the Israelites soon enough. In so many words, he said "Skedaddle! You, your wives, your children, your livestock, your belongings. Don't let the door hit you on the way out." 

At the end of his frantic plea for Moses and the Israelites to leave, Pharaoh tacks on a strange request "and bless me."

After God had devastated Egypt's livestock, crops, people, water--why did Pharaoh think Moses would agree to bless him?

Why did Pharaoh want a blessing from this stranger's God?

I think it might be as simple as this: In asking for a blessing, Pharaoh laid his last bit of pride on the line. The word for blessing is connected to the word for "kneel." The author of Hebrews says that the greater blesses the lesser.

By asking for a blessing, Pharaoh admitted that Moses and his God were powerful that Egypt and its gods. 


Here's my great, "spiritual" takeaway: Sometimes a blessing is the best revenge. 

INHERITANCE (Genesis 49)

Jacob's farewell blessings to his son is one of my favorite parts of Genesis. In spite of the history of rivalry and favoritism, Jacob understood his sons. He knew their natures, and he gave each one "the blessing appropriate to him." (Genesis 49:28, NIV)

So I'm not sure how I missed this before. Some of the so-called blessings read more like back-handed compliments, like Issachar: "When he saw how good the place was, how pleasant the country, he gave up his freedom and went to work as a slave." (Genesis 49:14-15)

Two of the brothers didn't even receive that much. They received, not a blessing, not a criticism, but a downright curse: Simeon and Levi. The two brothers had killed the men of Shechem after the prince raped their sister, but Jacob's words suggest their tempers continued unabated throughout their lives. He said, "A curse on their uncontrolled anger, on their indiscriminate wrath." (Genesis 49:7)  

The terms of their curse? They would be scattered throughout Israel instead of having land of their own.

That sounds close to disinheriting his sons to me. 

In case you're wondering, Jacob's prophecy did come true. As the priestly tribe, Levi received no land; and Simeon's allotment was swallowed up by Judah. 


But think about that. From the riotous, angry, murdering, Levi came the lawgiver Moses. (Come to think of it, Moses was a murderer too. Hmm.)  And of course his brother Aaron instituted the priesthood. 

God took the curse and turned it into something amazingly beautiful.  Like He had already done with using Joseph to save the known world during the famine. 

What harm I do or intend - and no matter what harm has been done to me - doesn't write "the end."

It only ends when God says so. Changed. Redeemed.

Praise the Lord. 

PAY IT FORWARD (Genesis 39)

The blessing of God spread over everything he owned. (Genesis 39:5, MSG)

I have been studying the subject of blessing for about a year, and I noticed several interesting things from the familiar story of God blessing Potiphar because of Joseph. 

Firstly, Potiphar noticed that God blessed Joseph. He was willing to trust his things to Joseph and his God.

Secondly, Joseph's blessing extended as far as he was involved with others. I bet even the slave caravan was blessed, then throughout a household, a prison--a nation--God blessed others through him. 

Thirdly, Joseph was willing to pay God's blessing forward. He still oozed God's blessing, in spite of the tragedy he had endured. 

I bet the same principles apply today. We don't (all) have to go preach on a street corner; like Potiphar, others will seek us out because they see God's hand on our lives. We only limit our testimony by limiting our involvement with others.  

I definitely experience this pattern here in the nursing home. It's a small circle, perhaps, but it spreads. When a lady asks me to play piano. When another asks for a hug. When someone else sits and wants to talk about her pregnant daughter. When an aide introduces her children to me. God uses me to bless other people, whether resident or workers. 

With each one, I remind myself that people are more important than work, I set aside my computer, and give the hug, or listen, or play and sing . . . God blesses me while I am blessing them. 

Whom does God want you to bless today?

TWISTS AND TURNS (Genesis 27-28)

Today I read the passages where Jacob stole Esau's birthright, fled Canaan in fear for his life, and received a vision of a ladder reaching up to heaven. 

The sense I received in reading this passage was that the covenant God gave Abraham hinged on Jacob. Isaac asked God to pass the blessing on to Jacob, before he left on his journey. Jacob recognized that he had a choice to make. After the vision of the ladder, he said he would call God his God if He did everything He promised.

God's plan to bless the world through Abraham's descendants hinged on a series of events beginning in Rebekah's womb and lasting for years to come. What a complex, human, personal twisting and turning of God's plan to benefit all of mankind took through Isaac and Jacob.

God knew all of that. . .and He risked it anyway.

It makes me wonder where the twists and turns of my journey will lead. I'm no Abraham nor Jacob. But God has plans for me and my influence beyond the confines of the nursing home. Only He knows how long and how far my life--and yours--will reach.