Withdrawal of Blessing – Foundations of a Worldview

Withdrawal of Blessing
Foundations of a Worldview

“The LORD will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me.” Deuteronomy 28:20

Sometimes God uses deprivation and loss to get His people’s attention. The good blessings that He provides day by day He can easily withdraw.

In Deuteronomy 28:1-14 God spelled out in everyday detail the many ways that He would bless His people in the land of promise. And then, just as quickly, He told them that He would take all these everyday blessings away if they disobeyed His Law.

All the material blessings of our lives come from the Lord. The earth is His, and everything in it (Ps. 24:1). He grants us blessings out of His steadfast love and faithfulness. If we prove not to be good stewards of His gifts, or if we use them in ways contrary to His purposes in giving them, He can simply take them away—homes, jobs, possessions, wealth, health, whatever we have or cherish.

Deprivation may also include depriving us of our peace. When we become confused, frustrated, disappointed, or disillusioned, we lose something very important to us—our shalom. To be deprived of that sense of well-being in our souls can be just as painful as any material or temporal loss.

At such times we need to give thanks, and then seek to discover whether this discipline comes as a test—to strengthen our faith—or a trial—to judge and correct us. Only by turning to the Lord and waiting on Him can we discern His reasons and purposes for deprivation or any of His discipline.

And only by this means will we be able to realize the good He intends for us.

The book of Ecclesiastes is a crucial resource for understanding the Biblical worldview against the backdrop of our secular age. Follow T. M.’s studies in Ecclesiastes by downloading the free, weekly studies available in our Scriptorium Resources page at The Fellowship of Ailbe. Click here to see the weekly studies available thus far.

Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T. M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).