Focus

Slow your breathing and become aware of the taking in and letting out of your breath. Focus on putting things aside so you will be open to what God is saying to you today.

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Read

Deuteronomy 5:22-33 (NRSV)

These words the LORD spoke with a loud voice to your whole assembly at the mountain, out of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, and he added no more. He wrote them on two stone tablets, and gave them to me. When you heard the voice out of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you approached me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders; and you said, “Look, the LORD our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the fire. Today we have seen that God may speak to someone and the person may still live. So now why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any longer, we shall die. For who is there of all flesh that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and remained alive? Go near, you yourself, and hear all that the LORD our God will say. Then tell us everything that the LORD our God tells you, and we will listen and do it.”

The LORD heard your words when you spoke to me, and the LORD said to me: “I have heard the words of this people, which they have spoken to you; they are right in all that they have spoken. If only they had such a mind as this, to fear me and to keep all my commandments always, so that it might go well with them and with their children forever! Go say to them, ‘Return to your tents.’ But you, stand here by me, and I will tell you all the commandments, the statutes and the ordinances, that you shall teach them, so that they may do them in the land that I am giving them to possess.” You must therefore be careful to do as the LORD your God has commanded you; you shall not turn to the right or to the left. You must follow exactly the path that the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you are to possess.

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Reflect

I am rather ashamed by what it takes for God to capture my attention. I pray, “Lord, show me the full measure of your power. Help me to believe and do as you’ve called. Lord, give me a sign.” I forget that the full measure of God’s power includes the gift of life itself. In my arrogance, I expect God to take a more active role in my faith walk than I’m willing to take myself.

I am far from the first to have communication problems with God. In our story, the Hebrew children had neglected God’s call and God literally laid down the law in fire and brimstone. Reminiscent of Dorothy’s first visit to the Wizard of Oz, the Hebrews barely stood in the presence of God before the fear of death overcame them. Thankfully, Moses was able to stand in their place to hear God’s message.

Do you ever wonder what God’s preferred manifestation to humanity is? a burning bush? a thunderstorm? a still, small voice? I think God prefers to walk beside us in creation, tending to the garden paths created from the beginning. Too often we stray from the path and it takes grander things to recapture our attention. Like Adam and Eve, we prefer to hide from the Lord in shame and are terrified when God seeks us. Even as shocking as this story may appear, there is power in knowing that God has restraint for these wayward children.

God’s desire for us today is the same as it was then, that things “might go well with us and our children forever.” What will it take for us to hear these words today?

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Pray

God, we pray that we can walk hand-in-hand with you in your creation as you intended. When we lose direction, speak from the fire and the mountain. Give us the faith of Moses to bear your voice a little longer. Amen.

Go with God.