Deuteronomy 31

Stories about time travel or prescience often run the risk of introducing time paradoxes. If you know the future, can you change it? If you do change it, then the future you saw in the first place wasn't really the future, was it? The Back to the Future trilogy explores some of the convoluted challenges that time travel might present while also being outrageously entertaining--featuring in equal parts nail-biting thrills and uproarious comedy. Minority Report, based loosely on a short story by Philip K. Dick and directed by Steven Spielberg, posits a world in which crime is eliminated because prescient people--knows as "precogs"--can "see" intended murders, allowing the police to arrest people before they commit the crimes. Tom Cruise plays a "Precrime" police officer who, as you might suspect, is accused of murdering someone in the future--someone he doesn't even know. Cruise, in turn, tries to prove his innocence and change the future. Eventually, Cruise meets the person he's supposed to kill and--I suppose this is a bit of a spoiler--a shocking "revelation" causes Cruise to say, "I am going to kill this man." (Don't worry, though--this is far from the end of the movie, which still has several twists up its sleeve.)

The movie does make one think: Why would you perform certain actions if you already know what the outcome is going to be? God knows that the Israelites will end up rebelling; He even says, "I will become angry with them and forsake them; I will hide my face from them, and they will be destroyed" (verse 17). Yes, God's wrath and the destruction bit are scary, but it's the hiding of the face that proves truly heart-rending. The Israelites have reached the Promised Land and will soon embark on a remarkable campaign in which, surprisingly, they will follow God's will for a bit. They're at a high point, so to speak. And yet God knows that it won't be long before Israel turns away from Him, so much so that He has to hide his face and withdraw His support. Why, then, does He tolerate the Israelites when He knows they're going to screw up in the long run? Or, a more relevant question might be--Why does God show me His grace and succor when He knows I'm going to screw up?

But God, as we learned in the previous chapter, is a forgiving God. He doesn't just threaten. He promises to Joshua, Moses's successor, that He "will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged" (verse 8). God may withdraw sovereignty from nations, but He will always be available to those who, like Joshua, turn to Him. I confess that I don't turn to God as often as I should--and I should be turning to Him all the time. Guilt, laziness, and selfishness keep sprouting up like Whack-a-Moles. I often try to use my little mallet to subdue the little pests, but only God has access to the master switch that can subdue the moles for good. (I suppose it would be clever of me to say that my similes get lamer the later the night gets, but that's not true. My similes and metaphors are always lame.)