This morning I was reading in Deuteronomy 8. Moses is reminding the people of Israel where they have come from - slavery, wilderness, testing - and where they are going - the promised land, prosperity, security. And he says to them, "Do not forget the Lord your God." When you are fully saved from the hardships you have had to endure, when you are living satisfied and blessed, do not forget God.
But they, and we, have a tendency to forget.
I love God's heart pouring out in this text, like a father to his child, like a lover to his bride. Remember me. I have loved you. I have taken care of you. I have brought you through such hard times of pain, hunger, thirst, fear. I have made you my own. Remember me.
And then at the end of the chapter, a warning - if you forget God you will be destroyed. And though there are definitely undertones of a God-wrath type of destruction, I think it also speaks to purely the cause and effect of forgetting God.
When we think that we have earned all the good things in our life ourselves, when we get proud and forget that on our own, we can actually do nothing, that pride will destroy us. When we forget His sustaining grace and power, we begin to be drawn to other things that will destroy us.
God longs for us to walk with Him, to remember His hand of guidance and continue living in it. Do not forget the Lord your God.
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