You Need God
Deuteronomy 19-20
I am currently working towards a goal that has five parts to it. Parts One and Two – easy peasy. I’ve got those done. The first hardly took any time or effort. The Second, only took a few hours to accomplish and not much effort – I just had to sit down and get it done.
Parts Three, Four and Five all depend on the cooperation of others. I’ve come close to doing Part Three before and I wasn’t sure that I would see it happen this time around. But you know what? This week it happened! I am thrilled!
Part Four is something else that I’ve come super close to doing too. And right now, I’m halfway there. The thing is…I don’t have a plan for the last half. I’m stuck.
Part Five is something that I’ve never done before. And I do not know how it’s going to become a reality. But I’m keeping my eyes and ears open for opportunities to inch just a bit closer to that goal.
In Deuteronomy chapter 20, the Israelites are listening to Moses give them directions on how to handle going into battle. I’ve always found verses 5-9 interesting because God is giving soldiers permission to leave the fight if there is something to take care of on the home front. That’s not something that you see happening very often within modern day military organizations.
In our personal lives, we may not be facing off into a physical battle, but there are times when God calls us to do really challenging things; to face difficult circumstances; to push toward an audacious goal, dream, or vision. And at times our resources for doing these things sometimes seem to dwindle away. How are we supposed to do what needs to be done, when we don’t have the time, energy, money, tools, or people to see it through?
In Deuteronomy, God wanted His army to rely more on Him than on huge numbers of soldiers. It’s the same with us. God wants us to rely on Him more than ourselves or our resources.
And it’s hard. I am tempted to think “God didn’t come through before…why would He do it now?”
But that’s not being fair to God. God’s timing and understanding far exceeds anything that I could possibly comprehend. As Creator of the entire universe and Sovereign over all living things, I need to have faith and exercise trust to do what He puts before me.
God goes with me and He will fight for me and give me victory. To God be the Glory.
-Bethany Ligon
Today’s Bible reading passages can be read or listened to at BibleGateway here – Deuteronomy 19-20 and Luke 18
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