I’m trailing two pickup trucks inside of Iowa, surrounded by scattered hills of gold-tasseled corn and a morning sky the hue of milk glass. I pass a field dotted with copper cows, a gray dilapidated farmhouse posted sentry. John Deeres rest on a dirt road corner, black-eyed Susans watching from the ditches on either side.
There is something about an Iowa farm that makes me pause and drink deep, that reminds me that life is but a vapor and I should take note.
The children of Israel are getting restless. They’ve waited 40 years for this—this entering the land of milk and honey. They are ready to cross the Jordan: to go, to fight, to settle, and to rest.
As you are, boys. Ready for college. My prayer for you has one more letter as I listen to Moses speak.
G, for Go.
R, for Remember.
O, for Obey.
And now W, for Worship.
Josh, when you were a small boy, you sometimes put yourself in time-out by sitting on the stairs when you felt it was deserved. When I would discover you sitting there and beckon you to get up, you would respond politely, “Thank you,” and tumble off to play.
And Ryan, when you turned five, I observed, “Ryan, you have been so good lately.” You responded, “Well, Mom, the day I turned five, I thought, ‘I can either be bad or good’, and I have decided to be good.”
My prayer opened with the deliverance of my two oldest sons into the hands of the Lord who goes before them as they head to college.
Now, as I continue to drink in Deuteronomy and listen to Moses speak his own good-byes to the children of Israel, I reflect on his plea to remember.
I can’t pray it better than he did, so here are his words—God’s words—to his children. Look at what God is doing in them.
I’m trudging through a month of good-byes as my two oldest (and their friends, whom I also love) leave for college. Each morning I pause to listen to Moses speak to the children of Israel as he, too, says good-bye.
My heart alternately weeps and rejoices with them–these Israelites sitting in the sand–because their story is my story. We both look back and look forward, without looking up. So we settle and listen as we wait in this wilderness beyond the Jordan.