This will be my last blog for a couple of weeks as I will be away from my computer. This morning already there was opportunity for stress with a nationwide FAA shutdown from a glitch that by the time I was made aware had been resolved. Several years ago I would have been undone with stress and anxiety from worry but I know Who is in control and it thankfully is not me! It’s my great God who loves and cares for me. The greatest blessing you will ever know is our God. He gives the blessings of love and peace in Him flowing to us. Yes there will be challenges and troubles but I don’t face them alone. My God goes before me. The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Deuteronomy 31:8.

But I’m jumping ahead in our story! I confess Deuteronomy 21 is another chapter I took to Him in prayer after reading it. I’m not a theologian. I’m not a minister. I welcome understanding from those who are. In prayer I asked Him is it because this was such a different time that these instructions were given? If a community found a man lying dead with no one around, the elders had to go out and measure the distance to the nearest town; offer the offering of a heifer; wash their hands of a murder they had no knowledge of v. 1-9. Can you imagine? Then in prayer I thought of how disruptive it is when murder is done in any of our cities or small towns and how unsettling that is when we have no idea who committed such an awful act. We try to puzzle it out, we mourn, and if the crimes are egregious enough and it makes the national and international news, the whole world wonders and grieves for that short time before yet another awful thing happens. We don’t have the rituals described in this chapter but we are affected by the increasing numbers of violent crimes.

In such potentially stressful times what helps us? The Lord will keep you from all harm – he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore. Psalm 121:7-8.

That Psalm helped me with the next part of this chapter. Marrying a captive woman v. 10-14. It seemed strange to me as a woman that if an Israelite man married a captive woman and he was not pleased with her he could let her go wherever she wishes. As a woman, it’s not hard to wonder what that would have meant for her in that time, much less in ours. Women were vulnerable then especially with no man to protect her. Let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her. v. 14. I remembered Hagar and how the Lord watched over and protected her and Ishmael when Abraham let her go.

God protected the first wife when a 2nd wife was more loved v. 15-17. I keep seeing care and concern from God for those whom people did not care for or be concerned with.

And then the hardest part. A stubborn rebellious son to be stoned to death. God doesn’t treat us as we deserve when we are rebellious. God was leading a nation and giving laws so that they could live in peace not chaos. If the laws could have saved any of us there would have been no need for God to give His own life for us.

I don’t know what today or tomorrow holds, I don’t know what challenges there will be that I am sure will seem insurmountable. I do know Who goes before me. I do know Who loves and cares for me. I know that should I die in whatever manner, peaceful or not, God is there with me and it is in His arms that I will be. He gives me such peace that no one and nothing can rob. With that understanding, I have His faith poured into me producing in me faith in Him. We don’t live that kind of faith alone. Only in Him will you find that faith, that peace, that love. Today I take His hand and rejoice in His Presence with me. Thank you Lord for the greatest blessing we will ever know…You!