Lenten Devotional by Matt Aufman
March 28, 2017
“So Israel will live in safety; Jacob will dwell secure in a land of grain and new wine, where the heavens drop dew. Blessed are you, Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord? He is your shield and helper and your glorious sword. Your enemies will cower before you, and you will tread on their heights.” (Deuteronomy 33:28-29)
These are the words of Moses, spoken as a blessing in his farewell address. His audience knew hardship. They were born into a wandering band of desert nomads, no more than a generation removed from slavery. Their community had been rent by divisions over leadership and theology. Worse, they had witnessed sadism of the worst sort, which their community had interpreted as divine retribution. Knowing this history, one might have expected Moses to bless these women and men with exhortations to discipline and self-reliance, especially as the “manna from heaven” on which they had relied was soon to stop falling.
But that’s not what Moses said. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Moses assured the Israelites that they could depend on God for sustenance and protection.
We sit in a uniquely privileged part of the world in a uniquely privileged point in history, yet even for us, Moses’s words are a challenge. How many of us believe that God will ultimately defeat our enemies? How many of us trust that God will provide us with abundance? Our own lived experience teaches us otherwise. Yet, when we study history, we see prophets like Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, and Frederick Douglass vindicated, while their oppressors are relegated to footnote status. We perceive the arc of history bending toward justice, but we too often miss that movement in our own life.
Like the ancient Israelites, we are called to recognize that the safe space we seek is already ours, given to us by God. Like them, we need to take a leap of faith beyond our lived experience to claim this gift.
Dear God, teach us to trust that you will provide for us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.