Originally posted: 07/16/2019
“You have circled this mountain long enough. Now turn north,” (2:3).
I’m not sure I will be able to pen the feeling I had while reading Deuteronomy 2. But I was reminded of those grade school days, the “Take Your Child to Work Day.” And somehow my Abba Father (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6) allowed me into His great and holy office, granting the privilege to sneak a peak at His work. But His workspace was nothing at all what I imagine a cartographer’s office may resemble; there were no maps or charts spread about; I saw only Him.
Ever so much more than a cartographer constructing and drawing maps, He is Sovereign Creator King; He created the very substance and existence of every created thing; “God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist” (Romans 4:17). And over and above His creation, He Charts Every Course throughout all of history.
Consider Him Who Charts Every Course
- He Charts Duration.
- “You have circled this mountain long enough,” (2:3).
- He Charts Direction.
- “Now turn north…” (2:3).
- He Charts Domain.
- “…for I will not give you any of their land, even as little as a footstep because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession .19…for I will not give you any of the land of the sons of Ammon as a possession, because I have given it to the sons of Lot as a possession,” (2:5, 19)
- He Charts Days.
- For the Lord your God has blessed you in all that you have done; He has known your wanderings through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have not lacked a thing…18 “Today you shall cross over Ar, the border of Moab,” (2:7, 18).
- He Charts Destruction.
- Moreover the hand of the Lord was against them, to destroy them from within the camp until they all perished, (2:15).
- He Charts Dread.
- “This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you upon the peoples everywhere under the heavens, who, when they hear the report of you, will tremble and be in anguish because of you,” (2:25).
- He Charts Deliverance.
- “See, I have begun to deliver Sihon and his land over to you. Begin to occupy, that you may possess his land,” (2:31).
How do we respond to Him Who Charts Every Course?
Deferring to human logic, disregarding His wisdom and disobeying His commands does nothing to diminish His Dominion over all His creation. He Charts Every Course.
What a privilege to call Him Abba, Father, to surrender to Him Who Charts His children’s Course and lovingly directs our Course into His future and hope.
“For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, (Jeremiah 29:11-14).
For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15).
Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God, (Galatians 4:6-7).
May we humbly and gratefully seek Him with all our hearts; that we would daily encounter His Presence and yield all control to Him Who Charts Every Course.