READING:
One-year plan: Deuteronomy 31-34
Two-year plan: Job 36-37, Acts 26:24-32
———-
The picture is a tough one. It’s a picture “from a distance”— and it’s that distance that so undeniably grips my heart at the beginning of this new work week. It’s that distance that hurts.
The story is the story of Moses near the end of his life. He was still God’s leader of His people, even though Joshua had been commissioned and was waiting in the wings to take the reins. Moses, though, had sinned at the rock of Meribath-kadesh years before, however, and that sin would cost him entrance into the Promised Land.
All he could do was look at what God promised, which must have brought both hope and grief at the same time. As one writer put it, “The panorama spread before him must have filled Moses with both unbounded delight at the prospects for his people and deep regret and sadness that he could not personally experience what had long been before promised to his ancestors.”*
It’s the grief that gives me pause today, though. I can only wonder how often our own choices and actions have resulted in our seeing God’s blessings only “from a distance” rather than directly. I wonder if our disobedience has caused us to see God’s best only from the perspective of regret and disappointment. I certainly don’t want to come to the end of my life that way – which means how I live each day matters.
PERSONAL REFLECTION: Are you looking at life through a lens of regret?
DAILY PRAYER: “God, help me to cling to You and Your Word so Your blessings are not only at a distance.”
TOMORROW’S READINGS:
One-year plan: Joshua 1-5
Two-year plan: Job 38, Acts 27:1-12
MEMORIZATION VERSE (March 1-15):
“He is your glory and He is your God, who has done these great and awesome things for you which your eyes have seen.” (Deut 10:21)
*Merrill, E. H. (1996). Deuteronomy. In P. W. Comfort (Ed.), Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (Vol. 2, p. 661). Tyndale House Publishers.
