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. 

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.