It is almost bizarre how easy it is to forget the goodness of God....
We read in Exodus 14 how God miraculously delivered his people from slavery in Egypt. Just 2 chapters later in Exodus 16 they are complaining already. By Exodus 32 they’ve built themselves an idol. It seems so staggering that so quickly after seeing God do such a great thing that they could be building complaining and building idols. We think that we’d do better if we were on our situation.
I have to wonder if we are wrong and maybe we would have done the same. Now most of us haven’t ever been rescued from physical slavery but we have been rescued from slavery to sin which is even more significant. How quickly we loose sight of that. And just like the Israelites, amongst those that have been set free (the church) there is often an awful lot of petty complaining going on about issues that in the scale of things, are pretty insignificant. We aren’t usually making up cow-shaped idols but how often do Christians get obsessed with idols like money, success or beauty? It seems to happen all the time. I’ve done both at times, i’m sure all of you have too.
Like the Israelites we need perspective. We cannot afford to forget what really matters. If we don't make an effort to remember the wonder of salvation, we risk falling into petty complaining and idolatry.
How are you going to go about reminding yourself?
I've been thinking about this a lot. It seems I'll make some resolution and almost immediately forget it! Something always draws me away from God, while I can't forget the absolutely pointless stuff!
ReplyDeleteI'm still struggling to make those resolutions stick too. It is amazing how easy it is to be detracted. I see myself in the israelites and that's scary
ReplyDeletethanks for the post joanna. good reminder!
ReplyDeleteby the way, i love your new? layout - it's really cool!