by Pastor Douglas Brauner

A Boulevard of Blessings

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

“How joyful are those who fear the LORD—all who follow his ways!”
Psalm 128:1 New Living Translation

The people of Israel struggled, wandering from place to place for forty years in a desolate land. This was not a land of milk and honey that had been promised to them by God through Moses. It was a dusty, forsaken place, a place of scarce resources.

They moved quickly from Egypt to Mt. Sinai, but it took forever to make it to the Jordan River. Those who were adults when leaving Egypt would die in the wilderness. It would be their children who would cross that river and enter into the Promised Land.

Fear, grumbling, and complaining was their daily food on this journey. Yes, God was with them, but were they with God?

In his book, Life with God, Richard Foster states that God’s basic question to us is quite simple.

“I am with you–will you be with me?”

God walked with his people, never leaving them, never abandoning them to the devouring desert, but they often left him. They made a golden calf and worshiped it. They longed to return to Egypt where they desired to sit by the pots of food. They attempted a mutiny against Moses. Yet God was with them.

It is isn’t easy following God’s ways. It often puts us at odds with the world. Total reliance upon Christ’s mercy is not the road on which the world walks, yet it is our way. We, like the people of Israel, hear God speaking to us, “I am with you–will you be with me?”

The psalmist’s promise is that the person who stays on God’s path, who lives in communion with God, will be blessed. The path worn by Jesus’ cross is a boulevard of blessings, of riches stored up for us not in this life, but in the life to come. “I am with you–will you be with me?”

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado