Read: Deuteronomy 29
Devotion: What do the next ten years have in store for you? A lot can happen in ten years. Not including the near infinite amount of small changes in my life in that period of time, the past ten years I changed careers, moved five times, got married, and had a baby.
Some of those things I hoped and prayed for ten years ago, but none of those things I could have predicted being fulfilled when they were fulfilled.
The point I’m making is that we don’t know our future. We don’t know what the next hour, let alone the next day or year holds for us. And yet we all have countless decisions we need to make, from small to large.
A question Christians often ask in thinking about their future and all of the decisions they have to make is, “What is God’s will for my life?” How can I make sure that I am in His will for me, and not making decisions against His will?
After traveling through the wilderness for forty years the Israelites were finally on the cusp of entering the Promised Land. Before they cross over, God renews his covenant with them.
He reminds them of His faithfulness toward them from the time of his calling of them out of Egypt up to that day which he uses to exhort and remind them of their covenant responsibility (vv. 1-9).
God then tells them his intention—his will—for them which is to establish them as his people in fulfillment of the promises he made to their patriarchs (vv. 10-15). God also warns them that if they are faithless he will remain faithful in bringing upon them all of the covenant curses that he promised would come to them if they were disobedient to the covenant (vv. 16-28).
What we don’t see in God’s exhortation and instruction for the people is a detailed plan of what every citizen of Israel is to do in the land. There is no, “Zedekiah will live for fifteen years under his father’s household until he marries Shimei, upon which time he will move out and begin shepherding his own flock near the town of Bethlehem. This he will do until he is sixty-five upon which time he will retire and hand over his flock to his son, Mordecai.”
That would have been nice for Zedekiah, but God didn’t tell him the beats of his life. Sometimes the Lord did provide some detail, like with Jeremiah and the other prophets (Jer. 1:5), but those are the exceptions, not the norm. And even in those cases the Lord didn’t give them detailed instructions regarding exactly what they were to do on a moment to moment basis.
The Lord knew exactly what decisions each of them were going to make, but he didn’t reveal that knowledge to them. Rather, he tells them this, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” Deut 29:29).
The Israelites were not to speculate or try to discern what their futures might be. Rather, they were to know God’s Word and live it out by faith, making decisions that were aligned with what God had revealed to them about his character and his commands.
If a decision had to be made between a choice that was sinful and a choice that was not sinful, the people were to choose the not sinful choice. Should I start worshipping Molech? No, that’s idolatry—that’s clearly not God’s will for me to do. When it came to a decision between two non-sinful choices then they had freedom to choose whichever they preferred, entrusting that decision to the Lord by praying, seeking counsel, and trusting that however it shook out the Lord was sovereign and using all things for their good and his good purposes.
What was true for God’s people in Moses’ day is true for God’s people today. We don’t need some voice upon the wind or some miraculous sign to know what God’s will is for our lives. We just need to know his Word, believe it, and live according to it. Love Christ, know his Word, live according to it, and make your decisions by faith.
