Passage Read: Leviticus 23-26
Meditation Verses: 26:3-8
Thought
I don't think we understand how good the Lord can be to us, how much blessing He can bring on us. Because of our unfaithfulness, He withholds the blessing He intends, and we must deal with unreliable rains and unfruitful crops and disease and thieves and numerous pests. Instead of recognizing our sin, we have found ways to overcome the hardships the Lord brings on us, with irrigation and chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and medicines and jails. We become used to life without the Lord's blessing, and He turns up the heat. Instead of repenting, we blame the natural world, climate change or evolution of diseases. We never think that it is because we have turned away from the Lord and He is allowing things to get harder and harder; He is making things worse and worse. We have found technological solutions to God's rebuke, so our pride grows along with our resistance to God's pressure. We no longer believe what the Lord is capable of doing to bless, provide and protect us.
Application
It may be too great a thing to bring the world to repentance, but surely God is able to bless and provide and protect me if I will commit to trusting in His ways and walking according to His commands. He promised to bless His people in the midst of other nations that were not enjoying His favor, so surely He can bless me in the middle of a town or city or country that completely ignores Him. He has promised elsewhere to bring rain on one town while another nearby suffers drought. He has promised that His beloved need not fear when pestilence comes, a thousand may fall besides me but it will never touch me. If I humble myself and trust in His Word so as to believe and obey all He instructs. I need to trust in the Lord, not in the cleverness of men and their technology. I need to recognize that when circumstances go against me, it may truly be because I'm not yet fully trusting in the Lord and His Word, and I need to change my ways some more to be like Him.