Today's
reading is from Deuteronomy 28-32.
“IF”
is a big word.
There are plenty of people who have beat themselves up
of the thought, “what might have been” or “if only.” Quaker poet, John Greenleaf Whittier, wrote the verse so often quoted on the subject of regret, “For
all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.’” The
“ifs” in life have caused much heartache and looking at the history of Israel
there is much to be saddened by.
However, there is another side of the word if. In
Deuteronomy 28 (and many of the following chapter), if isn’t a word giving despair,
it is a word giving us freedom. Israel and us today have the freedom to chose or
reject what God has to offer. There isn’t a mandatory path we have to go down,
we can choose our path. We aren’t free from the consequences of those choices,
but we are free to choose. God doesn’t want follower who are little more than
robots, programed to do certain things. God wants people who will chose him and
chose what is right.
These chapters laying out the Blessings and the Cursing’s
are not God’s way of saying, be good or else. These chapters are laying out the
options and the results of those choices. Did many make the choice which lead
to pain? Yes, and people do today, but they and we had the freedom to choose.
So what are you going to choose?
(picture from Brainyquotes.com )
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