“In spite of this, you did not trust in the LORD your God,”
~ Deuteronomy 1:32
Hi James and Ellen,
If you had to tell your life story to a friend – using a life map, what would you include in your life map? A life map includes the names of guys and gals who have influenced your lives and how they influenced your lives. A life map includes incidents which shaped your lives. Your grandmaa and grandpaa this past week told their life stories using life maps. Your grandmaa and grandpaa both talked about growing up in homes where there was a dad and ma who trusted in God and who helped your grandmaa and grandpaa to trust in God. Your grandpaa’s dad and ma were members of the Christian Reformed Church in Volga, South Dakota. Your grandpaa’s dad was first a deacon and then an elder in this church. Your grandpaa’s dad’s dad and your grandpaa’s ma’s dad helped to see built the Christian Reformed Church that is Volga. Your grandpaa’s dad was one of the guys who were behind building the Christian School that is in Volga. Your grandpaa’s first year in school was in a one room rural schoolhouse. Your grandpaa started his second school year going to the Volga Christian School. Your grandpaa was the only boy in his grade throughout the seven years that he went to the Volga Christian School. There were always five gals from the second grade through the eighth grade in the same grade with your grandpaa. Your grandpaa stuttered when he was in grade school and into high school. Your grandpaa when he was a young kid never wanted to talk in front of other kids let alone in front of guys and gals. Another part of your grandpaa’s life map is when your grandmaa and grandpaa made a commitment to relocate to Guelph, Ontario – where your grandpaa took over the position of being the Canadian South American Mission Executive Director. Your grandmaa and grandpaa really did not want to move from Florida – where your grandpaa was helping missionary candidates raise the funds that they needed so that they could leave for their assigned countries, to Canada because your grandmaa and grandpaa really liked living in Lantana, Florida but . . . if your grandpaa could have come up with just one no for moving to Canada, your grandmaa and grandpaa would not have moved there. Your grandmaa and grandpaa wanted to respect the decision of their mission leadership and to do what their mission leadership was asking them to do. Your grandmaa and grandpaa wanted to also be obedient to God’s will – believing that God was asking your grandmaa and grandpaa to be obedient to the decisions that He was leading other guys to make for your grandmaa and grandpaa to follow.
What do you think that Moses would include in his life map? What have you learned about Moses? Do you remember who influenced Moses’ life? Do you remember some of the incidents that shaped Moses’ life? God chose Moses to lead His specially chosen guys, gals and kids – who were the Israelite people group’s guys, gals and kids, out of Egypt to Canaan – the land that God had promised His specially chosen guys and gals that they would always have to live in as their very own land if . . . Moses wrote a series of five books. These five books tell the story or the history of God’s specially chosen guys and gals. Deuteronomy is the last of the five books that Moses authored. Deuteronomy means the second giving or the second telling of the law. The law which Moses related again in the Deuteronomy Book is the same law that God gave to Moses when Moses was forty years earlier meeting with God at the top of Mount Sinai. Deuteronomy 1 is a combination life map of Moses and of God’s specially chosen guys and gals. The first five verses of this first chapter are an introduction to the instructions that God gave to Moses to pass on to His specially chosen guys and gals. Moses was in the Arabah Desert when he passed on these directives from God to His specially chosen guys and gals. These dictates became the Deuteronomy Book. The Arabah Desert is located on the east side of the Jordon River. Moses could see the Promised Land but because he had gotten really mad and had hit the Meribah Rock instead of speaking to it to get water as God had asked him to do, Moses could not go into the land that God had promised to His specially chosen guys and gals that . . . the guys, gals and kids who would go into the land that God had promised to his specially chosen guys and gals were the kids of the guys and gals who had forty years earlier at Kadesh Barnea refused to go into the land that God had promised them. Twelve guys were sent into the land that God had . . . to spy out the land. Two of the spies – Caleb and Joshua, encouraged God’s specially chosen guys and gals to have faith in God and to . . . but the other ten guys got everyone’s ears resulting in God punishing His specially chosen guys and gals with a forty year desert sojourn.
The life map of God’s specially chosen guys and gals – after the Egyptian Pharaoh had let God’s specially chosen guys, gals and kids leave Egypt, had them trek for a year to Mount Sinai or Horeb – where they were given the laws which God expected them to obey. It took God’s specially chosen guys, gals and kids eleven days to get from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea – which is where the twelve spies were sent into the Promised Land. Moses during this time set up levels of leadership within the Israelite people group’s twelve tribal clans. After everything that God had done for His specially chosen guys and gals – both in Egypt with the ten plagues and then with leading His specially chosen guys and gals with a cloud during the day and with fire at night, – verse 32 says this about God’s specially chosen guys and gals, “In spite of this, you did not trust in the LORD your God,” Moses would use the term ‘the LORD your God’ almost 300 times in his Deuteronomy Book. The life map of God’s specially chosen guys and gals is filled with rebellious acts. Your grandpaa hopes that your life maps will be filled with ‘Godwinks’.
Deuteronomy 1 (213)