CHOOSING FEAR?

“Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life.” —Deuteronomy 28:65, 66

Nearing the end of his transcendent summary of the Israelites’ experiences and their possibilities as the people of God, Moses was blunt in setting out two alternative futures for the people. Obedience to God and His ways would bring blessings; disobedience would be a curse to them. This equation is not always obvious in our unjust world.

The psalmists and others throughout the Bible repeatedly lamented the fact that evil people seemed to prosper while good people were suffering.

But there is an underlying truth to this formulation that Moses and the witness of the Bible as a whole insisted upon. This is the pattern we saw in the Garden of Eden as the elemental human condition. When humanity chooses to disobey God, relationships are broken, and fear is the result. This outcome is not always immediate, but it is inevitable.

While Moses attributed this anxiety, despair, and dread to the judgments of God, they could as easily be described as consequences of the broken relationships described in Genesis 3. Moses concluded his exhortation by telling the people that the commands of God that he passed on to the people “are not just idle words for you—they are your life” (Deuteronomy 32:47). Stubbornly choosing against God leads to the disordering of creation, of ourselves and all our relationships, and eventually brings suffering and sorrow, despair and dread.

But there was good news, too, in Moses’ dire warnings.

This was always a choice for the people to make.

It did not have to be this way. Tragically, many of Moses’s warnings would be fulfilled in the future history of the Israelite nation, but even then, God was still with them.

God was merciful, and He would seek to heal and restore.