Week 9 Deuteronomy 8
Moses was doing a thinking-out-loud exercise about how things would go for Israel once they had moved into Canaan. He projected two alternatives:
Alternative #1 was that once Israel settled-in and got established they would logically just: praise the Lord…for the good land he had given them.
Alternative #2 had a similar beginning but ended differently. In that scenario:
a) Israel would settle-in
b) over time they’d get more prosperous
c) eventually they’d become very successful
d) they’d chalk up their success to hard work & entrepreneurial skills
e) they’d feel good about their achievement. And then they’d…
f) forget about the Lord.
Points a) b) c) d) & e) look like pretty normal steps along the path to personal wealth-building success. But according to Moses the critical intersection was the Point e) because it was the pause-and-think moment: the time to be careful! Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the Lord.
In normal financial-economic thinking Point f) is where Moses goes off-the-rails because he starts bringing a religious idea into the mix. But for him the religious idea was the fundamental underpinning of the whole scheme: it is the Lord your God who gives you power to become rich. Points a) – e) aren’t detachable from Point f). In fact everything rides on it.
No self-respecting financial-advisor is going to move past Point e).
But Moses’ point is that disregarding the fountainhead of prosperity is a mammoth & crucial & lunatic & first-order omission.
Note: quotes from Deuteronomy 8:10,11, 18 (NLT)