Context

What a wonderful chapter to discuss! The book of Deuteronomy is a great book to instuct and encourage. When looking at a book or chapter in a book it is important to see the context of the book in the whole of scripture and in the history of God's people. This is to ask of the text, "What are you saying to the original hearers" Deuteronomy is the last of Moses' five books. He recorded it shortly before his death and spoke these words to the Israelites "forty years after the Israelites left Mount Sinai, on a day in midwinter." (1:3) These words were spoken to the people, in a real time and place. (I really love how the time of year is even mentioned...) The people were east of the Jordan, camped in the wilderness. This is the speech (really a series of speeches) that would instruct them how to live in the LAND, to no longer wander in the wilderness. Think, if you will, about living as a nomad, carrying all you own, having only the necessities of life. Your life is slim...perhaps monotonous, routine in that you get up, eat, find more food to eat, pack, walk, set up the tent, cook the food, feed and care for the animals, talk to the family and go to sleep, ready to do the same the next day. But now, the LORD is taking you to a place to settle down, to be in one place to have, perhaps, more than the bare necessities. The entire journey of 40 years has been both a consequence of sin and a lesson in Theology. Moses wants the people to remember all the journey, all the events, all the good and the bad. Only in that way will they not repeat the same sins as their fathers and mothers.
As Kellie noted, remembering is very important to learning the lessons available in each event in our lives. If we look at our times and events in our life with the 'mind of Christ' we become in tune with God's plan and do not hold onto our plan. It was God's plan that got the Israelites to the Promised Land. Their plan got them killed and made them wanderers. (1:26-end of chpt)
Chapter 8 begins with the command to obey and ends with the warning to always remember God. If I am striving to obey God, I must know what He has said, hence the need to listen to Him in His word, in prayer and through the ministry of His Spirit. This requires discipline! Oh boy, the favorite pastime of this day and age is spontaneous life without any pattern or plan, so we fight our own flesh and fight the spirit of the age. I sometimes feel free if I don't pick up my bible for a day...but from what am I free? Free from God, the one who loves me, who owns me, who died in my place? And I am free to whom? Myself, the flesh of my self which wants its own way...the world's free wheeling spirit which does tend to waste rather than improve time spent, and the devil who hates me, who wants to enslave me, who wants to kill me....Not much of a choice when looked at that way.
Kellie has spoken well of remembering God and all He has done. It is far to easy to skip God in our memories and recollections. I have recently begun to keep a journal...Not an easy thing for me to do, but I want to remember and recall and make sense of the life God has given me. To do less it to treat this gift with disdain as though not a gift and of my own doing....something Chapter 8 warns us about in no uncertain terms.
Proverbs 1:7 "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Only fools despise wisdom and discipine. " We are on a journey that is counter the culture and counter the flesh. Expect it to be work, expect it to be arduous at times, but "For wisdom will enter you heart, and knowledge will fill you with joy." Proverbs 2:10