God gave Israel a great land in spite of their “stiff necks.” It was way more than they were used to in Egypt where they watered vegetable patches. But the Land God is giving them is a land “which drinks water by the rain from heaven, a land that the Lord your God cares for. The eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.” With God as the gardener, you need only watch the crops grow.

God wants to keep the blessings flowing across the land he watches over. His great passion and the desire of His heart is to bless His people. So In 11:13, he says, “if you indeed obey my commands… to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, he will give the rain for the land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil.  And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full.”

I believe God is watching over our land, just as he watched over Israel. He wants to bless us also. We need but obey God’s commandments and he’ll take care of the rest. We live in a land of plenty, a land of beauty, a land that we all can share. I agree with Gary Hall in his commentary. He says, “The key to the good life in the good land was obedience in the truest and fullest sense. The only proper response to such a gracious God was love and service.”