Leviticus 25:1-55

If ever you should doubt that God's Law carried weight and promise, then look no further than this passage.  God commanded the Israelites to observe Sabbath years, to allow the land to rest fallow in order to refurbish the nutrients in order for the crops to prosper, and when they didn't do it on their own, He made them do it.

I refer you to the following passages:

Jeremiah 25:8-14
Daniel 9:1-2
2 Chronicles 36":20-21

As consequence that Israel refused to follow the Lord and that they refused to obey His commands, both nations (Israel and Judah) were overrun by enemies.  Judah, the last nation, was taken into captivity by Babylon for 70 years.  It seems that one reason their captivity lasted for such a specific amount of time is to allow the land to rest fallow, that the land finally enjoyed its Sabbath years that the Isrealites had denied it for so many generations.

One must realize the amount of faith and trust it would take to take an entire year off farming and rely on the land and your stores to feed your family and entire household.  When each year the yield of farming seems so uncertain: any number of weather-related things, bugs, varmints and encroachers could harm or destroy a crop.  It required Israel to demonstrate complete dependency on God: that the yield of the sixth year would truly provide for three years until the land was producing and vibrant again.  Apparently, they hadn't been willing to take the risk.  The result was that God exacted those Sabbath years anyway, but instead of with the cooperation of Israel and its blessings upon them, it was to the detriment of the Lord's chosen people.  Instead of enjoying blessing, they were carted off into captivity and disciplined so that they might return to Him and finally listen.

We still do that today, don't we?  The Israelites may have seemed foolhardly in retrospect, but that is because we have the benefit of hindsight.  Do we show such loyalty and trust when we don't even have 20/20 vision, let alone foresight?  How many things in our daily lives, in our futures do we have to give over to the Lord and yet are unwilling?  That even when we do try, we have to constantly "give it back to the Lord"?  I know I've been there.  With our finances, with my daughter, with my unborn son.  In words it seems such an easy thing, but in deed we find that faith is about practice, not words, that it is about trust in the face of the unknown. 

One thing can be certain, though: God proves through Leviticus and the Exile that He keeps His word, that He has "follow through."  Which also means I can trust the promises of Scripture: that He will never leave or forsake me, that anything is possible through Him, that He will work good out of even the most difficult of circumstances.  He doesn't promise to keep me from difficult circumstance, only to uphold me and make them fruitful.  That's a promise I can take to the bank.

Tomorrow's Reading: Leviticus 26:1-46