Missionary Renegade: Daily Guide Daily Devotion grow. pray. study. from The Resurrection United Methodist Church of Leawood, Kansas, United States for Thursday, 25 June 2015

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Daily Guide Daily Devotion grow. pray. study. from The Resurrection United Methodist Church of Leawood, Kansas, United States for Thursday, 25 June 2015 - "Remember!"

Daily Scripture: Deuteronomy 8:(ii) 11 “Be careful not to forget Adonai your God by not obeying his mitzvot, rulings and regulations that I am giving you today. 12 Otherwise, after you have eaten and are satisfied, built fine houses and lived in them, 13 and increased your herds, flocks, silver, gold and everything else you own, 14 you will become proud-hearted. Forgetting Adonai your God — who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you lived as slaves; 15 who led you through the vast and fearsome desert, with its poisonous snakes, scorpions and waterless, thirsty ground; who brought water out of flint rock for you; 16 who fed you in the desert with man, unknown to your ancestors; all the while humbling and testing you in order to do you good in the end — 17 you will think to yourself, ‘My own power and the strength of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.’ 18 No, you are to remember Adonai your God, because it is he who is giving you the power to get wealth, in order to confirm his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as is happening even today.
Reflection Questions:
Poet Donald Hall observed, “Baseball, because of its continuity over the space of America and the time of America, is a place where memory gathers.” For example, George Brett retired 22 years ago, yet we see George Brett jerseys all around Kansas City—because fans remember him. Deuteronomy pleaded with Israel to make sure God, and God’s saving acts, never lost their place in Israel’s memory.

Deuteronomy looked forward with confidence based on the past. In the desert, God gave Israel manna for food (cf. Exodus 16:13-21), water from a rock (cf. Exodus 17:1-7), guidance as to which way to travel (cf. Exodus 13:21-22) and everything else they needed to reach Canaan. In what ways has God provided, directly or through people, for your needs? How can remembering that help you face the future with confidence?
We’d like to believe that anything we have or achieve came solely from our hard work and innate talent. Our culture often tempts us to say, “I earned it; I made it happen; it’s mine.” When Israel forgot that “the LORD your God” (verse 18) is the ultimate source of human talent and energy, spiritual (and then political) failures followed. How easy or hard do you find it to remember the Lord your God as the ultimate source of good things in your life?

Today’s Prayer:
Lord Jesus, help me to hold whatever I treasure loosely, to remember that it all comes from you. Keep my memory sharp, always aware of the ways you’ve led in my life. Amen.Insights from Dr. Amy Oden

Dr. Amy Oden is Professor of Early Church History and Spirituality at Saint Paul School of Theology at OCU. Teaching is her calling, and she looks forward to every day with students. For 25 years, Amy has taught theology and history, pursuing scholarship in service of the church.
“Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God …” (Deuteronomy 8:18)
Where or when are you most likely to forget God? To move through your life as though you are self-sufficient and self-directed?
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how easy it is for me to forget God when I’m online. Partly, it’s because when I’m online I have the illusion that I’m anonymous, which makes me likely to tune out my relationships with others and with God. But also, it’s because when I log-in, I move into a virtual reality that is some “other place” than my everyday life. It’s easy to check my faith at the door – or at the log-in in this case. It’s easy for me to forget that no matter where I go online I’m participating (or not!) in God’s mission for the world.
These words from Deuteronomy remind us that God went before the Israelites and provided for them in the wilderness, and God goes before us now. The internet can be a sort of wilderness. Yet God goes ahead of us spreading a path of grace if we will but have eyes to see. God is always and everywhere making our lives holy, and that includes digital space. We can participate in God’s holiness in cyberspace, or we can check out and forget God’s presence and love there.
What might happen if we remembered God when we move through digital space? How would we be transformed if we saw the virtual world as a place God is at work? “Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God …”