Deuteronomy 30:1 When all these blessings and curses I have described happen to you, and the Lord your God has sent you away to other nations, think about these things (the things we know, mentioned in the last paragraph of chapter 29). 2 Then you and your children will return to the Lord your God, and you will obey him with your whole being in everything I am commanding you today. 3 Then the Lord your God will give you back your freedom. He will feel sorry for you, and He will bring you back again from the nations where he scattered you.

i am loving deuteronomy in a way i can't even begin to put words to. i love comparing myself to the Israelites and knowing that they disobeyed God, but He loved them so much, that He kept bringing them back to Himself. and... He loved us that much too. He made a way for us to be reconciled to Him through Jesus. He gave us back our freedom. and talk about complexity: we, as people, are scattered from one another. we are spread all over the earth, and the Lord gets us back to where He wants us. then, in addition, we have all this "scatteredness" going on within us and God gets us back on track with that too.

FREEDOM: i was thinking about the idea of being free within the confines of God's Word (His Rules, if you will). the idea itself seems backwards. free within a set of rules? doesn't make much sense. but you only need try it out and you will see what i mean. i truly don't worry about what others think of me because i am not worried about this life, but i think about the life ahead, in eternity with my Father in heaven. and i think about the Rules... they are things like: treat your neighbor as yourself, love the one and only God, submit to your husband and be his helper, train up your children to know these things. wow... they don't really seem like hard things to do, especially if i want to live a life of LOVE and i want to be treated with respect and dignity myself. i just have to LOVE others and treat them with respect and dignity. the "Rules" mean a life of freedom from regret, freedom from hurting others, freedom from bad marriages and divorce. Freedom begins with belief and faith, in God and in His Son, Jesus. Freedom means figuring out what the "Rules" are, so that i can live by them, and then see their fruits in my life. i know i do not follow the rules perfectly, consistently, or even well sometimes. but i want to, and i love the reminders in deuteronomy, that God wants to bring us back to that freedom within His love for us, because He loves us and we are His chosen people