Take a moment to read Deuteronomy 8 before reading the devotional below.
“I’m not going to forget!” I practically shouted at my mom. I was a teenager, and my mom was trying to hand me a note to remind me to stop and pick up milk on the way home from school. The very sight of the note, however, was an insult to me. Of course I’d remember! We were literally talking about the milk for, like, ten minutes. So, in a huff, I walked out of the house without the note. I drove to school, and went to class. Later that day, when I got home, my mom asked a reasonable question: “Where’s the milk?” In a haze of embarrassment I turned around, stomped out of the house, drove to the store, and bought milk. I should have taken the note.
In these verses, God is telling his people not to forget. As Moses delivers this speech, the people of God have been in the desert depending on God alone for food, water, shelter and direction. They are preparing for a challenge that is God-sized. If they don’t depend on God, they know they’ll fail. But God himself is looking further into the future. He is looking to the time when life gets easier, when the spiritual challenges aren’t as pressing. When the greatest spiritual danger is subtle compromise. God’s message is simple: do whatever you have to do now to make sure you don’t forget then. Don’t forget that God is king. Don’t forget that obedience brings the greatest blessing.
It’s the easy times that are sometimes the most spiritually challenging. The easy times invite compromise. The easy times invite letting the guard down. The easy times are the times we are the most likely to forget about God, his promises, his direction, and his blessings. So we need to ask ourselves the same question today that the Israelites needed to ask then: what am I doing today to make sure I don’t forget about God in the future?