Remember God When Times Are Good

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Happy Thanksgiving. You know on Thanksgiving weekend we pause to reflect and give thanks. We know the world is not perfect. Our own lives are filled with many challenges and many problems. But on this weekend we take stock of all that we do have to be thankful for. In today's passage, Moses laid out a beautiful vision of what life would be like in the promised land. Let me read it again for you. A land of olive oil and honey. A land where you may eat bread without scarcity. Where you will lack nothing. A land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you. This is Moses to the Israelites. You know the Israelites, once they escaped a slavery from Egypt, things didn't go how they wanted. For 40 years they wandered in the wilderness. They experienced hunger and thirst. They had no permanent place to call home for 40 years. But finally, it's like they are on the cusp of change. Soon they are about to enter the promised land. Soon they will have abundance. Soon there will be no more thirst and hunger. And soon they will have everything they need that they didn't have for the last 40 years. But if you were with me in the reading of this passage, there is one underlying concern that runs throughout. And that is this. That in their abundance they would forget God. You see it over and over throughout this passage. Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God. Do not exalt yourself forgetting the Lord your God. Remember the Lord your God. Remember God. Do not forget. Once they had everything that they needed. Would they remember God? That is the question in Moses' mind. So I was wondering, was Moses just afraid that the Israelites would, are they just like spoiled brats who would be unappreciative of God and forget everything that God did for them? That's certainly possible. But I think there is a deeper issue here. It's not that they are necessarily just spoiled people who would forget. Think about it. For 40 years, that's longer than, well, some of you, not everyone, but for 40 years life was not in their control. They were extremely vulnerable in the wilderness. So it was such a difficult time for them. You know when you've been through difficult things and difficult experiences, all you want is to get over it and leave that behind, isn't it? You just want to leave that in the past. You do not want to go back and rehash those difficult memories. That's why I always wondered, you know, the older generation, why don't they really talk much about their past? We don't know anything. We don't know much. I think part of it is they experienced a lot of difficult things and they don't want to rehash that. In the wilderness, the Israelites had no choice but to rely on God. And yes, through that dependence, they grew closer to God. But also remembering God, that could also bring back the bad memories of those difficult times. And by remembering God, because God is so closely associated with those difficult experiences. So it's almost like they don't necessarily want to go back to that. You know, in my former life, when I was a criminal defense lawyer, I was often my client's only friend. You know, for a lot of them, going through the criminal charges, it was the most stressful and anxious time of their life. Because really, their future and what lies that it's not in their control anymore. They had to rely completely on me. And oftentimes, they were either very embarrassed or even ashamed to talk to family members or people they knew. So a lot of people just even kept it a secret. I was the only one who could really help them in that situation. And with a lot of them, I developed a good relationship with them in that sense. But once the case was done, that was a chapter of their life they wanted to leave behind. I totally understand. So one time, I remember I was at a grocery store and I actually bumped into a former client of mine. And there was a kind of made eye contact. There was a look of recognition. But then right away, I could see kind of a like a, oh, you know, like a embarrassed or pained look. I mean, I understood. It's not that they didn't like me. It's just, I think seeing me reminded them of that difficult dark time in their life. So for that person's sake, I just kind of looked away too. And I kind of kept walking on. And things become good. Many times we just want to enjoy that and not go back. So that is understandable. But what happens though, when you forget God who was with you during all those difficult times? This is what Moses says. When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them and when your herds and flocks have multiplied and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself for getting the Lord your God. Do not say to yourself, my power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth. You see, when you forget God, you can become proud. You start thinking that it was all me who created my good fortune. When you have this attitude, and what happens is you start treating everything like your possession. I worked hard for this. I earned this. This is mine. And when you start treating everything like your possession, it can start doing something to you. On the one hand, you can start becoming more anxious about what you have and losing that. And it can start making you less generous, more judgmental of others, less sympathetic and less compassionate to others who are going through a struggle and difficult time. And so it can make you a smaller person that is also more disconnected with others. In other words, I don't think it makes you a happier person. Now, for many people here can relate to immigrant life. Immigrant life is and was very hard. Immigrants had to survive by their wits and their tough resilience. That includes my family. They worked hard and I think for a while they were doing reasonably well. I was born right when my parents immigrated. And so when my child did, it was okay. The business was doing okay and whatnot. But then for those of you who were around then, there was a big economic recession that hit in the 1990s. And our family business also took a huge hit. So just keeping up with mortgage payments and expenses and upkeeping the building that we had, it became more and more difficult. So there was a fear, are we going to lose everything? So to try to make up more revenue and income, my parents purchased a second store and started watching that. So it got really bad after my first year of university. So I started to run my own window cleaning business to try to make money and pay my own way through school. But after that we have a second store, so I would go there in the evening to watch that store relieve my parents. And then just to make even more money, once the business was running, I got someone to manage it and I got another job, an office day job, right, to even more revenue. I mean these are the things that immigrant life that you had to do to survive. Fortunately we got over that and then things became better after that. It could have been easy to think it was all us. Yeah, we did it all. God does not deny the hard work that all of you do. And there is that part we play. That's why I push my own kids really hard in things like sports and whatever to learn the value of hard work. But Moses shares a great insight and truth. Do not say to yourself, my power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth. Remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors as he is doing today. Do you see that? Yes, we had to work hard, all of us. It took guts and hard work of our hands to survive. But I really believe it was God who gave us the strength to carry on. The perseverance never to give and the good health to keep toiling when we didn't know what else to do. It was God who gave us that strength. When you recognize God, when you remember God, when times are good or bad, then everything is a gift. What you have turns from your possession to a gift given to you. Have you ever received an unexpected gift? How did that make you feel? I will never forget the day that I was ordained as a minister right here, seven years ago. I mean it was just a beautiful, wonderful service full of people. And I received many gifts from people. I mean I know recollection of how much I got, but what I do remember is the incredible love and support that I felt. So when I think back on that, I'm filled with humility, appreciation and gratitude. And it reminds me that ministry and my calling is a true gift from God. And then that gives me strength to carry on. When you experience life as a gift, when everything that you have feels like a gift, then your life opens up. You live with more gratitude, appreciation and generosity and there's just more joy that seems to flow from an unending fountain. You receive everything as a gift that is to enjoy and to share. When times are bad and challenging, when you are vulnerable and things are not in your control, sometimes we have no choice but to rely on God. But when times are good, it is easy to forget God. When the Israelites suffered in the wilderness, God came to them in a powerful way. God brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness. In arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions, He made water flow for you from flint rock. He fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know. I mean they experienced so many amazing new things. God made water flow from a dry rock. He gave manna the kind of food that they had never eaten, tasted before. They became close to God and experienced God in wonderful new ways. So yes, a lot of us experience that when times are difficult, God comforts us and strengthens us. But God doesn't want to only be close to you when times are difficult. God wants to be close to you when times are good. God delights in blessing you with abundance in everything that God could give. And God wants to share in that joy with you. God's desire is to be close to us whether times are good or bad. There is a Jewish ritual and it's called in Hebrew Burkat Hamazon. And the translation is Grace After Meals. And this is a song or a prayer that they sing or pray after they've eaten their meals. And this ritual comes directly from today's passage. You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that He has given you. Do you see the order in this verse? What comes first? You shall eat your fill. You will eat. Be satisfied first. And then you will bless the Lord. You will give thanks to God. I thought that was so cool. In our Christian tradition, we often pray before meals, which is good. We thank you for the food. But this ritual that they do, it's a prayer after the meal. And I realize there's incredible spiritual wisdom there. When you pray after your meal, it reminds you that what you have, what has satisfied you, all that is from God. That's not just from my own hands. God has provided all this for me. So I tried doing that this week, but new habits are really hard to do. I kept forgetting. So it's not easy, but I think this is a very good spiritual practice that we can try. After every meal, try to remember. Say, thank you God for this amazing food I have. Because we eat and we just want to boom, we're off to our next thing. Let's eat and give thanks to God. And this way, remind ourselves that it is God who is the source of all good things in our life. On this Thanksgiving weekend and every day after, enjoy all the wonderful blessings that God has given to you. But always remember God. Do that and you will live and experience life as a wonderful gift. Happy Thanksgiving.