Consider this

Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and He shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee. Deuteronomy 28 : 47- 48


I have read the Bible from cover to cover several times, but I perceive I could never read it without something new jumping out at me. This verse actually shook me up while reading the book, Created To Be His Help Meet, by Debbie Pearl. As you can guess I had been seeking ways to improve myself in my marriage. The verse resonated the critical need for me to serve the Lord not just with lamenting and being busy doing good things, that wore me out into a sour puss but God wanted joy. He wanted me to be glad, He wanted me to consider the things He had given to me. How easy it is to consider the things we don't have and belly ache about if we had such and such or if this hadn't happen, yackity yak, rather than being vocally thankful for what we do have. Honestly, I was such a hard nut to crack that I have read the book over and over before actually implementing the suggestions and seeing results far above my expectations. But this is about the verse. Did you notice what the LORD himself did to His children who were not serving Him with joyfulness and gladness of heart for the things He had given??? He turned them over to serve their enemies. Today we don't have enemies like the Hittites and all the other ite's but what about the bad neighborites; hostile co-workerites; sickness-ites ..... you get the picture. I think we need to Selah. Yeah, let us pause and think about that.