March 21st-Guest Post By Mrs.Oz

Today's reading from the One Year Chronological Reading Plan, is Deuteronomy 31:30-32:52 and Psalm 90.

In Chapter 31 we read the song given to Moses from God for the people to learn and sing to their children. It's an amazing set of prophetic circumstances here. Moses has been told by God that these people will indeed turn from Him again once they feel secure in the temporal things. Once they have been fed, stored up for themselves, prospered and felt satisfied. What an amazing thing to realize how dangerous prosperity can be, even a little. It makes me think again on something I've been pondering a great deal lately. If you are afflicted, if you have trials, if you are troubled, if you are in need, you are blessed! The Lord is holding you near to Him and you are leaning on Him like never before. That is a blessing, a spiritual gift from the Lord. How more careful we must be in times of plenty and when things are going well! How easy it is to forget the Lord.
Key verse of the song:
"28 They are a nation without sense, there is no discernment in them.
29 If only they were wise and would understand this and discern what their end will be!"
Oh, to think of the end at all times! What a great wise thing this is! To think about where our lack of sense may lead us in the end, to think on our end itself! Only by thinking daily on our endings do we master the essentials of the journey. "They are not just idle words for you—they are your life." (vs.47)

Chapter 90 of Psalm is echoing these thoughts: "Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. "

It's amazing to think that the people were given this foreshadowing warning and yet they still did what God knew they would do and fall away from Him. They lost focus, they stopped paying attention, and more than anything I think they stopped feeling heart gratitude unto the Lord for all he had done, given, and continued to provide for them. Sadly, it's in time of want, need, and total dependence that these things are remembered. It is our nature to grow comfortable and self secure when things are good. That is why I say that these passages remind me of the loving gifts of trial in our lives. They make us hold tight to the hand of God. We cannot dare loose focus or we know we will not make it through. The cycle repeats itself over and over in our lives and over and over in the stories of these people. I feel sad for these people missing out on their blessings for such lack of focus and then I remember myself, so easily comforted by a sense of well being outside of Christ. So easily distracted, and so easily loosing track of the time I have been given.
Lord, help us to truly see what a blessing it is to feel a great intense need for you. To see things come one by one from your hand so that we know we have no other or no strength of our own to thank for these blessings. Thank you that your ways are our life. Help us to see the end always and consider it; to consider our days. To keep focused and not get drawn into the deception of worldly comforts. May we enjoy them while we hold them all with open hands to you. When we are afflicted, may we enjoy that it brings us to your feet more as that is where our true contentment lies.
Tomorrow's readings are Deuteronomy 33-34:12; Joshua 1-2:24