Word of Encouragement (01/10/2023)
“He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. 11 Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions, 12 the LORD alone guided him, no foreign god was with him. 13 He made him ride on the high places of the land, and he ate the produce of the field, and he suckled him with honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock. 14 Curds from the herd, and milk from the flock, with fat of lambs, rams of Bashan and goats, with the very finest of the wheat-- and you drank foaming wine made from the blood of the grape.” (Deut. 32:10-14)
Here, Moses describes how the LORD has provided for Israel. It was about their honeymoon stage, so to speak. Moses starts by saying, “the LORD alone guided him, no foreign god was with him” (v. 12). Then, he follows with a list of God’s abundant blessings on her (vv. 12-14). Let us observe the importance of the order here: Israel’s relationship with God is mentioned before the list of God’s blessings. This is not by accident. The blessings Israel experienced flowed out of God’s special relationship with her. So, we read, “He made him ride on the high places of the land, and he ate the produce of the field, and hesuckled him with honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock” (v. 13). These were the blessings God bestowed upon Israel because she belonged to Him.
This implies that we must get the priority right and value God more than whatever gifts He gives us. However good His gifts and blessings may be, they can never be greater than God, who is able to dispense them according to His will, can they? How foolish is the child who loves the candy his parents gave him more than his parents who gave it to him!
Notice also how Moses describes the primary blessing: “the LORD alone guided him, no foreign god was with him.” The essence of this blessing was that there were no other gods to distract Israel’s attention and devotion from the LORD. Why is it such a great blessing?
To follow and worship God alone is to be on the side of Truth. For there is no other god except the one and only true God, who is the Creator of all things and sovereign Lord over all; He is the ultimate Reality, the One who established our reality. To worship false gods is to worship nothing—even worse, it is to worship lies. We know what happens when we worship lies: it will break all our hopes to smithereens and destroy our lives in the end.
But, to worship the true God is to dance with Truth in beautiful harmony. It is to build our lives on solid ground rather than on the sand of lies. It is to find our security in the Rock of Ages rather than in the house of cards. If He should guide us, should we have anything to fear because we must travel through the labyrinth of life? Israel had nothing to worry about since the LORD was guiding her in the pillar of cloud and fire throughout her wilderness journey.
But even this greatest of blessings can be spoiled if we allow false gods (who are nothing!) to get a hold of our attention. How tragic it is if we allow the clamoring of these false gods’ lies to block out the voice of our Good Shepherd, who is the Truth! We know what happened when Eve paid attention to the serpent’s words. The tranquility she had enjoyed when God’s Word alone was her guiding voice was disrupted. Think about how unproductive you are when you are distracted by many things as opposed to when you are in a flow state, singularly focused on one thing.
Let us learn to value God more than His gifts. Let us guard our hearts against the intrusion of false gods so that the truth of God’s Word may guide us with unmistakable clarity without any competing voices in our souls.