Lent 11

This morning we are in the living room, two of us drinking coffee, two of us whining about who gets to sit in the chair, four of us tired, one of us having been sick last night. There is a teency, tincy bit of gloom in our parts.

Mornings like this are not conducive to deep thoughts about anything, and unless God tells me which kid in preschool passed on this current iteration of illness, it is hard to find the corner of my heart that wants to hunker down and listen. To anything.  So, this could be a low point. Or the beginning of the low point.

The only part I liked today was in Deuteronomy when they are instructed to "Write [these words of mine] on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." I had to look to see exactly what words should be there ("Love the Lord your God, walk in all God's ways and hold fast to God" [my paraphrase because this edition of the NIV loves masculine pronouns for God and I do not].) I like this part because we have a mezuzah on our doorframe that confounds our faithful Jehovah's Witness visitors and now I'll be able to refer them to the right verse.

So there's that.

Maybe this will be one of the days when someone else hears something good and passes it on.

Deuteronomy 11:18-28

New International Version (NIV)

¹⁸ Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ¹⁹ Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ²⁰ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, ²¹ so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.
²² If you carefully observe all these commands I am giving you to follow—to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him and to hold fast to him— ²³ then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations larger and stronger than you. ²⁴ Every place where you set your foot will be yours: Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea. ²⁵ No one will be able to stand against you. The Lord your God, as he promised you, will put the terror and fear of you on the whole land, wherever you go.
²⁶ See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse— ²⁷ the blessing if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today; ²⁸ the curse if you disobey the commands of the Lord your God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known.