![[Photo of a Scripture verse]](https://www.deankwilson.com/Blog_images/Deuteronomy_4_29.jpg)
| “But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.” |
| —Deuteronomy 4:29 |
I’ve long been a fan of the television show MacGyver—both in the original 1985-1992 version and in the current 2016-2019 version starring Lucas Till. No matter what mess Mac and his cohorts get themselves into, we viewers know that eventually, through some miraculous use of whatever he finds at hand, Mac will get out of the mess and bring the episode to a satisfactory conclusion. We could summarize each plot as “Mac gets into a mess. But if from there he finds the right stuff around him, he will escape that mess.” Those words “but if from there” have great power in describing a point of ultimate decision that turns the world upside down.
I find it fascinating to note that in our spiritual lives each of us has had some moment—either in split second of time, or over a very long, gradual period of time—where we could say, “But, if from there.” In declaring words of instruction to God’s chosen people, the Jews, Moses writes the following in Deuteronomy 4:25-31:
After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time—if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God and arousing his anger, I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed.
The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you. There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell.
But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.
When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him. For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your ancestors, which he confirmed to them by oath.
As we begin a new day, we must remember that no matter what mess we may get ourselves into, we do not need to “MacGyver” a way out of that mess. Rather, we simply need to turn about face and seek the Lord our God. If we seek Him, we will surely find Him. Therefore, we must continually seek Him with all of our hearts, minds, souls, and strength and love Him with this kind of devotion.
