Prepare.

Chapter 9:11 - 20  (ish...)

Make sure you don’t forget God, your God, by not keeping his commandments, his rules and regulations that I command you today. Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in, see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up—make sure you don’t become so full of yourself and your things that you forget God, your God,

the God who delivered you ...;
the God who led you through that huge and fearsome wilderness...
the God who gave you water ....
the God who gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, ...in order to give you a taste of the hard life, to test you so that you would be prepared to live well in the days ahead of you.
If you start thinking to yourselves, “I did all this. And all by myself. I’m rich. It’s all mine!”—well, think again. Remember that God, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors—as it is today.

If you forget, forget God, your God, and start taking up with other gods, serving and worshiping them, I’m on record right now as giving you firm warning: that will be the end of you; I mean it—destruction. You’ll go to your doom—the same as the nations God is destroying before you; doom because you wouldn’t obey the Voice of God, your God.

The Israelites had to look DOWN to till the land and harvest crops for survival until they were in the desert with nothing. Then they had to look UP to God. Preparation for the rest of their lives when they needed to depend utterly on God.

A warning. Do not be led into the temptation of relying on myself and the benefits which GOD HAS GIVEN ME. Everything - EVERYTHING - comes from Him.

Be prepared.