God’s victory over my old attachments
But you, O Lord, are a shield around me,
My glory, and the one who lifts up my head. Psalm 3:3
Read Deuteronomy 33:26—29
As I move into the new year I would like to claim God as my own. I’m with Moses. He blesses Israel. Moses is about to die. Israel is about to enter the land of promise. Of course, as their story unfolds every one of Moses’ fine promises will become, if anything, curses, at least mocking shells, emptied of God’s blessing. The ancient gods will be restored. Somehow Israel will find itself entertaining them again, hardly knowing how it happened, but so much of Israel’s downhill ride will stem from that. If I want God to have the victory over my own old gods I need to name them before him, to renounce them, or my blessing will be in peril. Let me reflect on this day past. Are there secret gods or, at least, hidden allegiances that I still entertain?
There is no god like you, Lord God, who blessed your people through Moses, who opened the land of promise to them. You have come to claim me as your own through Jesus Christ, and to win me back from every false devotion. You call me now to have to other god, no sly claim on my deepest affection and ambition, to secret nothing from you. Instead, ‘Dear father in heaven, hallowed be your name.’ May your name, your will and your purpose have no competitor in my life. May I be ready now to wholeheartedly declare before you every little plan, each hope, my dreams and the relationships I cherish. Rid me of what does not promote my entry into the promised land, this year of walking with you. Rid me of what cannot ultimately be taken into your kingdom. And bless everything that can be taken in.