Leaving Empire, Learning Kingdom: Deuteronomy

And it's like, Lord, I do not have what it takes to do this. So when I give you all I've got, there's going to be so much more room left for it to be done. And if you do not get in this thing with me, it's about to be a mess. It's about to be a for real mess. And time after time, God's faithfulness lived in that gap. That's right. That's so good. Between all I had to give and what it was gonna take. That's right. Hey, hey, back porchers. My name is Allison Allen. I'm the 5'12 spiritual wing woman Talisa Harper, who's about to have PhD on the end of her name as well. Yes, she is. We have to celebrate that, don't we? Yes, we do have to celebrate that. Oh, my goodness. It's momentous. I didn't even finish my introduction. We welcome you. We are so glad you're here at Bad Quartures. We love y'all. We want to remind you to just check out our Instagram. We want to stay connected with you. We want to hear what's going on, but we've got such. But we're nothing if not squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. We're squirreling. I'm having a squirrely day today. I love this series, right? Me too. No wasted words. We're hiking through the whole Bible, and we're coming to a book today that can sort of make you want to have a snooze fest. Well, if you haven't hiked through this book with the one and only Christine McClellan. Christine McClellan will make her fall hard for Deuteronomy. Yes, yes. And she's one of our favorites. I don't know if you could say one of. I mean, I was going to say our favorite. I was going to make her the penultimate. I mean, Deuteronomy, I have to say, for me, it's one of those books. It makes me want to do two things at the same time. It makes me want to, like, run through a brick wall and cry. Yes. You know, it, like, accesses different parts of me. Hand and glove. You know, it, like, raises my courage. And it sort of, like, raises this deep texture. Tenderness. I love that. That's what happens to me when I eat a lot of sugar. I get real excited and then I feel real tender. I love it. Okay, we're going to dig in. We're going to dig in. Okay. But I want to start with a little bit of a teaser question. Do you have, Lisa, an old sermon or a story about an old sermon that you preach? So I'm talking about your beginning years. Oh, something you were taught. Yeah, something that jumps in mind or even the subject of it. Yeah, give us a story. Come on. Immediately when I realized you meant something we had taught. Yeah. Yeah, it was, oh, I don't know. It was probably one of the first times. I was in my 20s. Okay. And I was invited, you know, which was only a few years ago. and I was invited to teach, of course. We didn't use the P word back then. That would have been even more divisive back then. But I was invited to teach at a, it was called a wow event, Women of the Word. Okay, all right. And so, you know, I'm a kid and it's, you know, I don't remember. I can actually remember the church. I won't say the name, but it was a church with a lot of lovely women in sweater sets. And I had just been really impacted by youth pastors and how, you know, when they get real fired up about a text, you know, the veins would poke out in their neck and they'd use a lot of inflection. And I thought, I know there's some people who don't think women can rightly divide the Word of God, even at a WOW event. And so I really want to be emphatic, make a right point. And so I was slinging my Bible and Genesis flew out and hit a woman. No, it did not. woman in the front pew. Oh, wow. That's what I remember. It's this woman. The word of the Lord hit her. The word of the Lord hit her. Hit her hard, baby. I was wondering, I wasn't soon. But yeah, that was the first thing that came to mind. Okay. Yeah, I remember that one. Flying Genesis. Flying Genesis, yeah. Were you scared? Do you remember how you were feeling on the inside? Yeah, sometimes if you could read the balloons over the Bible teacher's head, we know we're buffoons half the time. It's like God uses the weak and the foolish. So usually kind of what I'm thinking is, you're such a goober. Because sometimes, you know, when I'm trying to prove kind of my own credibility instead of letting the Lord handle whether I'm legitimate or not, share the living hope that lies within me, I go, it goes downhill real fast. I mean, I want to say, it's not been that long ago, maybe 10 years ago. I guess I was feeling especially insecure. And I got up and got, what's my Bible? and I said, ladies, I don't even like being called a lady. I don't know. You don't use that word. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. It seems kind of cheesy to me. But I said, I said to this wonderful group of women, it's a wonder they invite me back to their conferences, ladies, get out your swords. And I thought, I want to punch myself in the throat. Is that not the cheesiest thing you've ever heard? So yeah, sometimes looking back or remembering my own messages is- We've got a little internal cringe. It's a quick trip to humility. That's right. That is a wonderful way. Okay. So a quick thing to set it up. So when I was 16 years old, you mentioned youth pastors. My small church in rural Mississippi where women did not teach. Right. Okay. I was at church one night and was walking down the hall. We could testify. We could testify. Yes. Or share. Or share. We could share. Share testimony. And my youth pastor stopped me in the hallway. And I wish I knew if he was asking all the kids this or if it was just like a divine moment that God had for me. But he stopped me in the hallway and he said, Christy, I want to ask you something. I was like, let's go. He goes, what is it that you would do every day for the rest of your life for free? Now I'm 16. Let's be clear. I'm not thinking about the rest of my life. I'm just, where am I going Friday night with what friends, whatever. But man, it was a deep call, it's a deep moment because I heard myself say I would teach people the word of God. Wow. That's what came out of me. Did it surprise you that it came out? I can feel it in my body right now telling you that story. And I remember he just kind of looked at me and nodded. Because, I mean, what do you do when a girl tells you she wants to teach the Bible? But you're not in a context where women teach the Bible. Well, I don't know what happened. But a couple of months later, I was still 16, he asked me to share a devotion at Wednesday night prayer meeting. Okay. And so I came that night. That is back then. And I wish I knew the backstory of how it came to be. But I remember being so nervous, like equally nervous and on fire. It was sort of like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe that. And I don't remember the passage or whatever, but I remember that night. And I remember just asking God for the faith to step into it. Like, I want to step into this. And then people coming up afterwards and just being kind and encouraging. And it's one of those, what was that moment? You know, I had never had that experience, but it was like my soul coming into alignment with like this calling of God on my life. And it was the first time I had embodied it and like lived it, you know? And so, I mean, that's the story that comes up immediately when you ask me that question. And I thank God for my youth pastor. I don't know where he is now and what's going on in his life, but God really used him. He was the tip of the sword of me starting this journey. The power of his words and the power of a question. And so that brings us all the way back to Deuteronomy. So tell us what Deuteronomy, the word, actually means. And then would you give us just a little bit of an overview of the book, The Power of Words, Sermons, and Remembering. What you just heard us do, because I think all too often in evangelical, conservative, Bible-believing Christian context, I don't know if y'all have heard this, but especially growing up, I heard so many messages that emphasized you're a new creature in Christ, but then the application was not sound exegesis. It was so don't ever look back. That's right. I remember, you know how props used to be a good thing. Yeah. I remember a big thing. I remember one of our youth pastors, you know, they had the little onstage. He had like he was sitting in a car and he had a rearview mirror. And he made this huge deal of if you're in Christ, you don't look in the rearview mirror. And I remember years later thinking that actually was really bad exegesis. because the whole point, at least kind of a thematic level of Deuteronomy, is I do want you to remember. Well, in the whole Bible, remember, remember, and then the converse, do not forget. That's right. You know, it's right up there with do not fear. That's right. You know? Yeah. What's the word mean, Deuteronomy? Help us with that. So, you know, that's a great, I love talking about this because obviously in our English-speaking Bibles, the fifth book of Torah, you know, it's Deuteronomy, which essentially means a repetition of the law. Okay. And I'll get to what it is in Hebrew in just a second. But to the overview, you know, these words, the book of Deuteronomy, it's Moses giving this new generation. So when you're looking at the history of Israel, the Bible says they've spent 430 years in Egypt. Then the Lord miraculously in one night, you know, delivers them through the Red Sea. I love how the Bible says, and God vigilantly watched over them all night while they passed over on dry ground. I love that. He didn't just split the sea. He dried the ground. That's who God is. That's what he's like. I love that. And so then we get into the wilderness, and they're going to spend 40 years in the wilderness. That's connected to the rebellion in Numbers 13. Yes. And where God says, all of you 20 years and older, you're going to perish here in the wilderness. It's going to be the younger generation that's going to go into Canaan. Right. So Deuteronomy is a repetition of the law, the instructions of God given to them. Because the very next book in the story of the Bible, as we all know, is Joshua, where the Israelites are going to go into the promised land, into Canaan. And so they're about to take a journey they've never taken before. And this so speaks to me because I'm a scaredy cat. When I've never done something, I'm always scared to death. Which is so crazy. The first time you told me that I'm like that doesn't seem doesn't square does it because your personality is so outgoing and so vivacious I remember the first time you told me that I know it surprised me so like risk you know I'm like a 0.5 on the risk meter okay okay you know you're way higher on it yeah than I am so I feel this I'm like when God is calling me to do something I've never done before I'm like I need your words right like I need you to like and you're sure I like show me and guide me, take me by the hand. Right. So this is the spirit kind of Deuteronomy, but in the Hebrew Bible, it's not called Deuteronomy. It's not called a repetition of law. It's called Devarim or Devar, which is the Hebrew word for word. And so it is right after the very first line in Deuteronomy, you know, all of these words of Moses given to this generation. And I love that because the Jews talk about words, have the power to create or destroy worlds. The power of life is in the tongue. And you think about that, right? Think about the things that have been said to you in your lifetime that just lifted you, created a buoyant sense of living hope and encouragement, gospel kingdom. Or devastated Jesus. You still remember the devastation. And it's still like a wound. It's like the wound of words that we carry. And so I just love it for the Jews. They look at this. These are God's words. It's like this young generation who are about to go on an adventure they've never been on. Well, you look at all the times that Moses is preaching, remember, and you think about the power of words. I read a study one time that a negative thing has to be said once to stick. And a positive thing has to be said six or seven times. And when you look through Deuteronomy, Christy, I see the Lord through Moses' mouth over and over again saying, God led you and he cared for you. That's right. He was faithful. He provided man. Remember the faithfulness of God. So even in that psychological principle, I see God saying, remember the good. That's right. Yes, and of course there are warnings and all those things. Even in light of their history. You've got to remember for 430 years they've been under the Egyptian idea that there are gods. That's right. But those gods do not care for you. The sun god, Rob, beats down on you. There's a snake god who wants to devour you. So he had to keep reiterating, this is a god who vigilantly watches over you. This is a god who doesn't just make a path, who cares for you so much, he makes the path dry. So they had to keep hearing that. In today language we would say we have trauma triggers 430 years of abuse and the idea that a God was a faraway punitive pantheon of God Right. That story has to be retold for them to begin to understand it. One of my teachers in Israel, I love the way he put that. He said, it took God one night to take the Israelites out of Egypt, but it took 40 years in the desert to get Egypt out of the Israelites. That's it. I love that. That's it. Because a lot of times you'll hear people talk about, well, if you just look on a map, they could have gotten to Canaan in 11 days if they had gone down the coast. And then that's often painted in a pejorative context. So he was mad at them. So they had to suffer in the desert for 40 years. And I go, I don't think that's the whole story. Yes. I think it's actually very compassionate. God said, I'm going to teach you that I want to be in relationship with you. Because had it only taken a week and a half, would they really have believed he's a good God who cared for them? That's right. But morning after morning, manna after manna, you know, fire by day, cloud by day, fire by night, over and over and over again. They begin those old creases in their neuropathways. I love that. I'm going to get hit by this God who hates me, began to be replaced by, yet again, He provided for me this morning. Can I read a scripture that speaks exactly to that? I love this. This is kind of a reduction of Deuteronomy 8, and it says this, and you shall remember, there we go again, the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness, that He might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you. I love this, y'all. And he let you hunger that he might feed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone. We see that echoed in Jesus' temptation with the enemy, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And then he goes on to say, your clothing didn't wear out, nor did your sandals wear. I just love that that's exactly what you just explained. It is such a, when I hear people disparage, and even Christians, disparage the Old Testament and specifically Torah, the law, as being punitive or didactic, I'm like, you haven't read it. Right. Because what he says over and over and over again is you matter to me. Yes. You matter to me. Right before the passage you just picked up, one of my favorite passages in Deuteronomy is where it talks about them being chosen. in chapter 7, chapter 7, verse 6. Okay. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples of the earth. The word there, and Christy, you can, you know, we butcher the Hebrew here on, we always say our pronunciation on Backport theology. A for effort. Yeah, it's like cornhole. You know how cornhole, we're playing cornhole the other day. If I can get the beanbag on the wood, I'm fired up. You've won. Correct. Yeah, and it very, really goes in the hole. Right, right. If I didn't hit her or I didn't hit a bystander. Of all we could be sitting here talking about, God is pleased with the conversation. That's right. So this pronunciation is probably off, but treasured possession comes from a Greek word. This is close, but not in the phonetic hole, segula. And the notation there is that he is intentionally treasuring them. It's not a cursory thing, which means this is relational. He's repeating the law, but it's not a punitive law. It's promissory. He's saying, you matter to me, you matter to me, you matter to me, which I think is so important for us to get. because we've, even in religious art, you've got the pictures of white-haired Moses on these stone tablets. And it looks like he's going to whack them over the head with it. And I'm like, no, it was, this isn't punitive. And it's not transactional, it's relational. Can I add one thing to that? You can add a hundred, please. I just want to, man, I want to bless you guys with something. I give this to my students a lot because words matter. And when we think of law, we automatically think, well, I just kind of go to drudgery. I'm like, oh my gosh. Or I'm going to get in trouble if I break it. I'm going to get in trouble if I break it. But the word in the Bible, when we get our English word law, it is much better understood as instructions. Yes. That's good. So Torah, it comes from yara, which means to shoot, like to shoot a bow and arrow. And that has just changed it for me because what are God's laws? They are simply and yet profoundly, and I mean, this is Deuteronomy, God's instructions. Well, instructions for what? Like instructions for how to bake something, build something, make something. No, God's instructions, His laws are instructing us how to live in shalom. They're intended to move us to the way things were meant to be. And so following the commands or following the instructions or keeping the law, God's heart in it is, I want you in shalom. That's right. You're not just a treasured possession. I want you to be a treasured possession in your home. Christy, drag that one down for a second because we hear shalom and all too often we think that Hebrew word means peace. as in I haven't had any caffeine today. Absence of anxiety, yeah. It's like, it's so much more holistic than just I'm not struggling with anxiety. Drill down on Shalom. Man, Shalom is the mood of the Garden of Eden. And it carries this idea of like wholeness, harmony, delight. It's like Shalom is, it's the way things were meant to be. It's the state of something. Yeah, body, mind, and spirit. Yes. Utter goodness. That's shalom. Walking in the garden in the cool of the day. In the cool of the day. And like, who doesn't, you know, do you want to feel more whole? Do you want to feel more centered? Like your whole life is in harmony, all your tributaries flowing into the, you know, kind of the nile. Like that's this sense of shalom. So that's God's heart in Deuteronomy. That's God's heart in all of Torah. He's just like, man, Genesis 3 went down. Yes. Now y'all are out here. I want to instruct you back to shalom. And so when I think of it that way, I'm like, earn it. It is. I tell Missy, I've used this a million times here, but I see it myself when she was little. She liked to bowl. I'm not a big bowler, but I like the nachos. But I said, baby, remember those felt bumpers they would bring up so your ball wouldn't go in the gutter? Yeah, that's right. That's what the instructions have got. They're beneficial. They're for our good. They're promises and they're parameters. They're not this tightrope where if you step over it, God's going to whack us over the head with a 50-pound Bible. And I do think we have to continually, just like they remembered, we have to reframe our minds. Yeah, that's right. Because even in modern Christian culture, we tend to skew toward performative and punitive instead of the reason I want to follow God's demands is He loved me first. That's right. I'm not trying to earn his affection. He loved me. He provided dry ground for me in the Red Sea of my life. And when I remember his faithfulness, I want to get as close as I can to how he wants me to live. I hear the both of you saying that the law functions like holy rumble strips on the highway. Yeah, that's good. That's right. It's like the jarring. You're not in the safety. Come back into the lane. I want to pick up a tributary. You mentioned tributaries. There's something you said to Lisa and I as we were prepping and praying. And I'm just going to give you a little jogger. Would you talk about milk and honey and feet? Y'all will go with me to Deuteronomy 11. This is one of the passages when I say I just want to run through a brick wall and cry. Here we go. Set it up. Set it up. So they know his rights are in the journey. So, oh my gosh. It's good. Thank you, God. Okay. Because the Bible was given to us that we might know who God is and what he's like. So who is God and what is he like? What's Deuteronomy 11 going to show us? So they've come out of Egypt, right? So Egypt is empire. That's right. I mean, the Egyptian dynasties lasted longer than the Roman Empire, right? Rome lasts a couple of millennia. You know, Egypt's a 6,000-year dynasty after dynasty in its empire. Well, we ask the question, what lets it— And higher archival. Yes. Exactly. Very vertical in its structure. Who's on top? And so how is it an empire for 6,000 years? Well, essentially, it's the Nile River. The Nile always floods. The Nile always works in an agricultural world. That means when you plant your seed, there's going to be water. You don't have to really pray about it. You don't have to think about it because every year at the same time, the Nile is going to flood. And so it's a very independent way. So you know when to plant, you know when to harvest. That's right. And so how do you move the water from the Nile over to your crops? So they practice something called foot irrigation. This is super nerdy, but just stay with me. One, I'm a nerd, but just stay with me. So foot irrigation, they would build these little levees over to their farmland. Baby ditches. Like little baby ditches. And what foot irrigation simply is, is when they wanted to pull water from the Nile to water their crops, they would just take their foot and open up a space in that levee. The water would flow through and they would watch it flow, flow, flow. Everything's watered. Everything's good, independent. The Nile floods. We can count on this. Cool, cool, cool. It's Tuesday at 3. Then they would close the levee with mud when they wanted to cut the water off. Yeah, I misspoke. There's a baby ditch. they built, like we were playing the mud where it gets, they would build a little dam, a levee. And so you're saying they would just with their foot. Just kind of open up a little opening. That's so cool. And then close it up when you need to. And then they would take the mud and pack it back up. Okay. But it's this very like calculated and dependent way. Foot irrigation. So now that we know this, you guys, I love this. So he's given them the law at this point. We've got the law. Yes. And then now you get the practical. application of these compassionate directives. That's right. To a young generation that's going to a place they've never been. Right. Right. So we're all like GPS. Where are we going? What are we doing? Where are we going to get there? So in Deuteronomy chapter 11, I'll just pick it up. Oh, let's go with verse nine. Okay. And so that you may live long in the land the Lord swore to your ancestors to give them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey. Well, we think milk and honey, and I think like the fields of Ireland, like super green, you know, this poetic language, but it's very functional. This isn't like a metaphor. That's right. It's really a land of milk and honey. You're going to be pastoralist. You're going to be agricultural. So verse 10, here we go. The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden. Read that is Independence of the Nile. Because that's not in my translation. I love that that's in an IV. Yes. I love it. Yes. Now we go on. Irrigated it by foot. By foot. Verse 11. So cool. Now look at this. But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. There's no Nile there. You're not gonna be able to count on this huge river flooding for you every year. The rain's gonna come a different way. Where's it gonna come from? From heaven. Who lives in heaven? God, the source of God. Okay, I'm sweating. I'm so fine. Verse 12, it is a land the Lord your God cares for. Fill the tenderness in that. It is a land the Lord your God cares for. The eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end. Oh, my goodness. And so what is to show us about like who God is and what he's like? And I think about this so often. Yeah. That if God wanted to raise up another empire, he would have just left Moses in Egypt. Yeah. and just let him be raised in the pharaonic court, become the next Pharaoh where they have the Nile and all that assurance of the annual flooding and all of the water that they need And so we see God moving the Israelites to see this starts to convict me And it calls my courage up. God is moving them from independence to dependence. That's good. You're moving from an empire that has the Nile to a land that unless I provide the rain, that comes from heaven. There's no harvest. There's no foot irrigation. There, but I, the Lord, care for this land. My eyes are upon it. That's right. And I mean, it's so tender. It's so intimate and it's anti-empire. It's God saying, I'm going to walk with you in a different way. I'm not like the pharaohs of Egypt. I won't be like the Caesars of Rome. I'm going to walk with you like a shepherd, like shepherds his flock. And I mean, this is in Deuteronomy. Yes, it's awesome. And I think it's like a father telling his children, when you get there, because I mean, if it would have been us, what's the first thing they're looking for? Where's the water? That's right. That's right. Where's the big Nile here? Where's the big tributary of water coming off the Gulf of Aquaba that's going to give us that animal? Water is life. And the Lord is like, it's not going to be that way. So the question becomes, and see, here's where it starts to convict me. Would I rather live in a land dependent on heaven for my reign where I have to trust? Or am I trying to get over here in the realm of empire where there's these seeming Niles that I can count on, that I can foot irrigate, that I can make it work for me? You know? Well, control. And even I wrote down while you're talking, Christi, deliverance and dependency are synergistic for God's people. Yes. And I think our humanity. Yes. teaches us, you have made it when you no longer have to depend on anybody or anybody else for your or your family's or your loved one's welfare. And God goes, no, I never want you to lose your dependency on me. There's risk in that. There's inherent risk in going, I have to trust. And that theme you see all throughout the, well, New Testament too, but certainly in the Old Testament, It's the winter rains. It's the, we have to depend on him. And I love that there's even imbued dignity in that. Because when somebody in the South, sometimes the American South, sometimes I'll have guy friends. And they're, what they're trying to convey to me is, I care for you. So I'm going to, I'm going to take care of everything for you. And a few of my friends' husbands, I've had to say, I'm so grateful. And I so appreciate that you'll open doors for me or that you'll carry heavy stuff. I so appreciate that. But actually, my arms and legs work. That's right. And so when you tell me to sit down, you've got it all covered. What at some level I feel like you're saying is I don't get to make any investments. And so even if I can't do much, to me, you're acknowledging that I can bring something to the table of worth. If you say, I want you to invest. And he's saying, I trust you so much that I'm going to let you be in partnership with me. I'm not just going to say, because you see too, beginning of the wanderings, he says, just sit back, I'll part the Red Sea. We're moving toward Joshua where he says, I want you to get your feet wet. I let you observe the miracle when you're beginning your relationship with me. Now that you've walked with me, I want you to participate in the miracle. So I love that. Deliverance and dependency also point to me get to be in relationship with God. He doesn't put us on a shelf like a tchotchke and say, you just sit there and I'll do everything. He says, I want you to do this with me, which is amazing. That's right. Can I take a bit of a left turn off the script? can take any turn. Let's click left. It's a question I have for the two of you again. So I'm hearing this. It's beautiful, all the insights. When I read, it's a land the Lord your God cares for. He's watching over it from the beginning to the end of the year. And I just had the thought that there may be some folks watching right now who hear all the speak of the promised land and think, I've missed it. I've missed the promised land. I've missed the promise. And yet we see here in a natural sense, God is tending their promised land. And so what I was wondering is, would y'all just take a moment, or is there a moment in your life where you feel like maybe you missed it? Or you feel like, let's fill in the blank for somebody watching. I'm 55. I thought the Lord said such and so. And here I am at 55. I don't believe anymore that there is still purpose and deliverance and passion to stand in. So I don't know why, as you guys were talking about, I just thought there might be someone who's going, yeah, I hear all this about the promised land, but how is God tending my promised land when it feels like he's forgotten me? Does that make sense? It's kind of a general— Yeah, I want to give Christy more time to answer this. Yeah, but what comes to mind— But I'll say this as succinctly as I can. I think when we remove the thorns and thistles from the promised land, we mitigate the promise. Okay. And I think we have a very idealized, wrong understanding of the promised land. Yeah, that's good. Because we put it in a human construct and we go, there will be no toil. It won't be difficult. You know, I'll have tight skin and a high metabolism. I'll get everything I ever wanted. Yeah. And if that was the case, they could have stored up manna and put it in the first. Correct. That's right. And they wouldn't have had to get a bronze snake in the book of Numbers because there were actual vipers in the land. They wouldn't have had all kinds of relational problems. And so for us to think, once I make it to the promised land, everything will be hunky-dory. You actually might be in promise right now. But you're missing promise because you didn't think hard and promise coexisting. That's right. But God disciplines those He loves. And when I look back, when I remember my own tiny story now at 62, I'll tell you the richest blessings in my life have happened in the most difficult chapters of my life. In the both and. In the both and. Sometimes just the hard. That's right. Okay. Sometimes it was just the heart because it took hard for me to go. I can't kick the levee down by myself. That's right. Yeah. If God didn't bring any rain, there ain't no water in my life right now. And so when I begin to experience God in the desert, that is also the promise. Come on. Then I go, oh. That's good. So I think actually the point could be made exegetically, Allie, if we're just looking at journey. He talks all the time about sojourners, about where we're on. You take this forward to New Testament. He says, once you're in me, you're in the family, which you could take to say that means the application of promised land is for the believer every day. Yeah, for sure. That it's not something we're striving for. It's something we're in because we're in Christ. Yeah, that's right. So we're in the already, but the not yet. But promise includes heart. It does. It does. Christy, anything that leaps to top of mind for you? I mean, my whole last year comes to mind for me. How so? You know, my mom passed away last year. My little 16-year-old dog, Chester, we had to put him down. If you've ever loved an animal, you know what that is. But you need to know you're an only child, too. That's right. Yeah. That's right. And so you care-taked for your mama. That's right. I mean, there's a whole lot more there than if there were five adult siblings who were helping you. And I can sit here and tell you last year in no way felt like a promised land. But the presence of God to me was so near. That's it. And now, to be totally honest, I've not even articulated this out loud, but sitting here when you ask that question, I'm feeling a little lighter, still grieving. Because, you know, grief doesn't just have like a period on the end of it. It's waves. But I'm feeling lighter. We're moving into a new year. I've got new things going on. God's been faithful. And I am missing that closeness. The dependency. Because the Lord comes close to the broken heart and saves those who are crushed in spirit. And I think when I was just busted up in a ditch, metaphorically, last year, just grieving and only child, you know, I could have 50 friends in a room with me. But I have to sign those papers for my mother's medical care. I have to choose what facility she's going to go in after her stroke. So in no way was I alone, but felt lonely quite a bit, even though the family of God was around. And so it's kind of what you're saying. And I think about how eternal life is now for those that are in it. It's not just something we're headed toward. Now, to kind of finish where you were going, we are headed to the totalized promised land. Oh, yes. Revelation 21 and 22. Yes, sure. Right? And I love how, I think it's Rabbi Jonathan Sachs that talks about despair is not a Jewish emotion. Yes. That, like, you know, we may lack hope, we may lack whatever, but despair is not a Jewish emotion. And I think about, I'm raising that because I'm just envisioning Jesus, Jewish Jesus walking around the Galilee, proclaiming the kingdom of heaven, casting out demons, healing the sick, the paralyzed, the spirit of Jubilee was coming. You know, this good news and a perfect lamb of God moving in the earth, not on a throne, like living in ancient Capernaum. Capernaum. And so I think about how the 12 disciples, as they walked with him, they still stubbed their toe. They still are in poverty. There's still days they go out to fish all night and catch nothing. And so if walking with Jesus in the flesh didn't just fix everything, you know, why are we equating, like you say, the promised land with lack of difficulty or whatever? Right. Right. But I'm missing that presence. Doesn't he say when they are going to take the promise, saying we're hopping ahead a bit, he says he's going to drive out the enemies bit by bit. That's right. Yeah. Because they can't hold the whole land. That's right. They can't hold the whole land. So when you talk about difficulty. That's right. He leaves the enemies. Again, it doesn't make sense to us sometimes in the natural, but you go, oh, you look at their whole story and you go, oh, even that was a provision. Yeah, because this generation doesn't know how to fight. That's right. Well, and the one other thing I'll say, just to what you're saying, because I feel like I just want to say this about who God has been for me this past year, is there is this quiet confidence in me right now after last year because I did so much work last year that I did not have it in me to do. I would wake up and there'd be the thing, whether it's teaching, filming, taking a, and it's like, Lord, I do not have what it takes to do this. So when I give you all I've got, there's going to be so much more room left for it to be done. And if you do not get in this thing with me, it's about to be a mess. It's about to be a for real mess. And time after time, God's faithfulness lived in that gap. That's right. That's so good. Between all I had to give and what it was going to take. That's right. And that's a different economy and way of thinking about life. So it's a quiet confidence because I'm kind of coming into this year. I've just lived a year on my knees. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm still here. Sure. And like God has been so faithful. He's lived in that gap. But Christy, to me, the testimony, back to when that's all we could do. But it's enough. Defeating the enemy along with the blood of Jesus, Revelation 11. the testimony of the presence and the intimate presence you experienced of God. If we could just live in that. Yeah. Because when we see Christianity as being primarily about ethics, I'm like, oh, my heavens, you're missing the best part. The best part is we have a God who is close to us. You are one single woman in Franklin, Tennessee, out of, what is it now, 300 million people just in the United States of America, billions in the world. And our transcendent God loves you, not just the corporate church. He loves you Christine McClellan so much that He made Himself unmistakable And he spoke to you in the dark and he was your cloud by day and pillar of fire by night in such a tangible way that you would go, this isn't a corporate faith. This is a relationship with God who loves me. And you see that. You're my treasure. You see that over and over. Don't say this is about a punitive rule. This is about this relational, loving God. When you were saying that, I thought, at the end of the Deuteronomy, you get the rape passage. That if we don't read in proper context, you think, ooh, that's weird. We don't even have to go there. I'll say this. For a woman in that society who would have felt alone after being sexually violated, raped, or abused, for God to say, I'm going to establish a bride price for her, a mohar, that is five times the going rate. Because society is going to kick her to the curb. But I want to make sure she's taken care of. Because that one individual, single woman living thousands of years ago that feels alone. I'm going to make myself so present to her that she'll know she is my treasure. position, you go, what a good God. What a kind God. What a compassionate God who loves us. We could, I feel it, go on for another hour. I can see what it makes you cry. It's amazing. Will you come back for another book? I absolutely want to come back. We'll keep it tucked in our pocket what book that would be, but we want you back. But I was wondering if we could land here, you guys, for Deuteronomy. I want to go to chapter six. Okay. As we close up. And I just want to read these scriptures and then I'm going to hit that softball and wind it up and let you go. What would be cool is I know exactly where you're going is to have Christy land with everybody in the porch and teach them what you're about to read. Okay. All right. It says this in chapter six. It says, listen, Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words I'm giving you today are to be in your heart. Talk to us about that. My goodness, you guys, it's such good news. So for us as Christians in the church, we have a central prayer, right? The Lord's Prayer. Doesn't matter if you grew up Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal, Baptist, whatever. It's the unifying prayer for the Christian church, our Father who art in heaven. Well, the Jewish people have a prayer that's much older than that. And it's found here in Deuteronomy 6. It's called the Shema. And what I love about that is Shema means to hear. It's Shema. Because to hear God is to do it. It is to hear Him and do it. And so this central prayer for the Jewish people, Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Achai, the Lord your God is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. And later we add strength. And then Jesus is going to add a section from Leviticus and love your neighbor as yourself. And so it's the central prayer, secular Jew, religious Jew. It's the first prayer Jesus would have learned. It's the first prayer. It's the prayer Jesus would have prayed every day of his life at least six times, according to rabbinical tradition. That's right. So to love God and to love your neighbor. And this thought that anytime, this is where it gets exciting because now we're back to words, right? It's this prayer, these words given to God multiple times a day. But what if it's true that anytime we do the smallest thing to love God or love our neighbor, the kingdom comes? I love that, Christy. Like, what if that's true? Yeah. It's almost like our own little foot irrigation. We're moving away the levy and the water's flowing. Love God, love your neighbor. And I think a way to just frame it back to empire and kingdom language is all empires, Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Greek, Roman, whatever, they are vertical systems. It's all about who's on top. That's right. Right? And you hold contempt for who's below you and you're jealous of who's above you. And the whole system is anchored in power and might, who's strong enough to take it. The kingdom is a lateral kingdom. Paul uses one word, Adelphoi, my brothers and my sisters. I mean, he who's a super apostle. He can just be like, everybody sit down and shut up and listen to me. He's like, my brothers and my sisters. It's lateral. It's not asking who's on top. The kingdom is like, who's beside me that I can walk with? The family of God, you're my sisters in Christ. Jesus is the firstborn, only begotten son of the father, right? So when we find our place in this, I don't have to take from you. I don't have to be stronger than you. I don't have to be strong enough to take it from you and then strong enough to keep you from coming back to get it because that's the realm of empire. These are the pharaohs, the Caesars, the kings of old. And so I love this prayer because it's a lateral prayer. Yeah, it is. As we love God, what is it going to move us to do? Love our neighbor as ourself. And now we're talking orphan daughter stuff. Yeah, that's right. Because when we're stuck in scarcity and the orphan, right, we're scrounging. And I love how Duquan talks about a scarcity mindset always rounds down. Yeah. When we're anchored in what we don't have in the orphan and scarcity, we get all timid, scared. I know what happens in my life. I get tight-fisted. I'm not generous. I don't know if I can afford to help you, Lisa, with that thing, because is there going to be enough for me tomorrow? It makes me small. It makes me shrink back. It closes me. But when I'm anchored in my daughtership, back to that treasured possession, oh, I'm part of the family of God. even as an only child in all the ways that I feel about that. I have sisters and brothers in the faith. And Jesus is my firstborn, only begotten. And then there's God the Father. Okay, I'm not on my own. I can open my hands. I don't have to be small. I can be generous. I can let the resources flow to you. And so this is the heart of Shema. God's raising up a different society that is anti-empire and is not anchored in scarcity and the orphan. That's right. It's anchored in sonship and daughtership, the family of God, the royal priesthood, the treasured possession. We can afford to give our lives away because God is giving them back to us in manifold fashion. So love God, love your neighbor. And it's this daily reminder to be anchored in that. So that's the schmah. Yeah. Ooh, I love it. I love it. We're going to the same place. Yeah. I thought there's somebody. I was just going to say. Yeah. Who's driving on the elliptical. Come on. And where they almost had to pull off the side of the road or fell off the elliptical is when you said, I felt so alone. Yeah. Yeah. And so we're talking about we're treasured. We're a family. We're not orphans anymore. His presence is tangible. He is our. There is something. if you open your spirit eyes to recognize He is with me. He is my call by day and pillar of fire by night. But there are some people who just emotionally don't feel that at all right now. And I just think, Christy, to not just pray Shema for them, but to pray that God's presence, just as sure as He was with His people here, that supernaturally today, the living spirit of God would fill that space where they feel so alone and they would experience what you've just described. I think you should pray because loneliness came with a fall. Yes, it did. Loneliness was not part of God's plan. That's right. Yeah. So as we just get ready to pray, I would just invite you to think about what area of your life right now makes you feel like there's not enough? Where is there not enough love in a relationship? Where is there not enough money in the bank? Where is there not enough fill in the blank? Yeah. And we're so used to pushing those feelings down. We just try to keep going. But I actually want to invite you just to let it be present with you. Sometimes I kind of like try to hold it in my hands because it just lets it be with me. And because God sees and He knows, and as we pray, my prayer is going to be that God would meet all of us, you, wherever you are, the three of us right here, as we think about whatever that is in our own lives right now. And just to let the Lord just be an oil and a balm to all of us in prayer. So let's just pray. That's good. Father, we're just holding that thing, that area, whatever it is, where we just feel like there's not enough. It just feels like lack. It just feels like scarcity. It feels like poverty. It feels like dryness. Dehydrated. Small. kind of unkept. You know, Father, I just call your attention by faith to these areas in our lives. And Lord, we just pray that you would just come close to the brokenhearted this morning. That way you were so close to me last year. There were sometimes it actually was almost painful, like pressing in on a bruise. You were just so close. And Father, would you just give us the gift of you? Would you be that living water poured into our places of scarcity, poured into those places that feel like such lack where there's not enough? Father, thank you that it's okay when we're not okay because you're okay. just thank you that the anchor holds in the veil because you are holding it in the veil. Yep. Yes. That Lord, by faith means faith in you, not faith in ourselves. So Lord, would you comfort the lonely today? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Would you comfort us in these places in our lives? Would you speak into the places where we feel like orphans? Mm-hmm. would you bring a sense of enough insufficiency into the places of lack father thank you that eternal life is now and will be fully realized in the future and father in this somehow would you just move us to love you and to love our neighbor I know in my own life, sometimes the way out of scarcity is just to go be generous. Sometimes the way out of the sense of lack is just to go give or to get out of the sense of loneliness. Just go find my friends. So, Lord, whatever step we can take today, would you be the strength in our frame, the solidity in our hearts, the goodness in our spirits. and we just pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Christy. Deuteronomy. We love you. I love you guys too. And I know I speak for Lisa and just saying thank you for the ways that you've allowed the Lord to shape you in a year of deep suffering because in some way we're the beneficiary of what God has done. And so we're all our friends on the porch being able to sit with you today. So thank you. Thank you for walking the journey. Y'all, this was, I don't know about y'all, but this was rich. I feel full. And we just want you to know we love you. We just cannot wait to see you next week here on the porch. Please remember, you're always welcome. There is a chair around this table. It's got your name on it. Jesus has made sure of that. Come on back next week as we dig into another book, The Bible for No Wasted Words. See you soon. Access more.