Deuteronomy 31:20 –
For I will bring them into the land I swore to give their ancestors—a land flowing with milk and honey. There they will become prosperous, eat all the food they want, and become fat. But they will begin to worship other gods; they will despise me and break my covenant.
They are about ready to enter the Promised Land and Moses is giving his final “marching orders” before they leave him. Interestingly God already knows they will drift away from Him and worship other gods. Yet even with this foreknowledge His love remains and He keeps His word. Is God saying this because He knows what the people will do or does He just know the most likely outcome of prosperity? Two avenues I want to explore and that is Gods knowledge of the future and the United States today.
First let’s look at Gods knowledge of the future. Many say God knows what will happen, while others say it’s all chance. I personally think it’s a combination because we have free will. God may set in motion a sequence of events that will most likely lead us to the place He wants us. But we have the ability to take action or ignore these prompts. In this instance I believe God sees the most likely outcome of being prosperous and living large. Also, He knows how quickly they strayed with Moses and all the signs and wonders so why would that change?
Second I want to look at our country today. Everyone seems to think our prosperity today has led us down a wrong path of worshiping money and stuff. But even in the early history we twisted God’s will for our nation. Look at Manifest Destiny as a prime example of people overstepping God’s prompts or twisting their agenda with God’s. We expanded west and became even more prosperous at a great cost in life and liberty to many others.
I think as we read this the key we need to take is God does not bless us to drift away but to glorify Him. I think we get so wrapped up in the great things we are doing that we miss the little things God orchestrated to get us to that point. So the big key is no matter how far we go in life, our focus needs to remain on God. The key way to do that is get locked into a community of like-minded Christians, a good church and read and pray daily. Not saying that will cure it all, but it will keep your focus on God and His destiny.