The verses I’d rather forget in the chapter I’d rather forget.

SCRIPTURE:  Because you did not serve the Lord your God with a heart full of joy and gladness for the abundance of all things [with which He blessed you], you will therefore serve your enemies whom the Lord sends against you, in hunger and in thirst, in nakedness and in lack of all things. Deuteronomy 28:47-48 AMP

THOUGHT: Deuteronomy contains not only the blessings of God for a people who love him, it contains the curses (yes, you read that right) of God for a people who forget him, or worse. As the saying goes, you just can’t unsee that. If it weren’t the very word of God, I would say, “don’t go read it.” But avoiding what you don’t like and understand in that revelation is no way to get to know your Redeemer; the same one who asked those same people to come to the mountain filled with fire and thunder and smoke so they could hear him speak, why? So the fear of God would keep them from sinning (Exodus 20:20). The better question is why they wouldn’t.

I feel like putting down my pen and never writing again because I ask myself this question: have I had a heart full of joy and gladness for the abundance of all things with which He blessed me? Do I deserve his abundance if I’m not a joyful soul? I’ve just written an entire Thanksgiving series while struggling all the way. I wrote honestly, but it was hard. It’s not that I don’t know the truth, it’s that joy and gladness has always been a struggle in my adult life, and especially in the past three years. God help me! And God help you too if a heart full of joy and gladness doesn’t describe your walk with God. If it does, God bless you. Maybe you should write the next devotional.

PRAYER: Oh God, sometimes you come to bless, but sometimes you come to test. Help me and anyone else who struggles to find joy and gladness at the abundance of all things with which you have blessed us.