Thursday 4 Oct 2012

Thursday Reading: Exodus 32:1-8

Key Verse: Exodus 32:8
8  They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

Devotion:
No matter how hard we try to keep things going on the straight and narrow, when we get squeezed or pushed in the wrong direction too much we are liable to give in and go along with the crowd. Aaron did exactly that in this passage. The Children of Israel had been waiting for Moses to come down from communing with God on the mountain and they were now restless and impatient. They had probably figured that they should wait for a while before Moses was due to come back and their time was up in their minds.

So instead of waiting a bit longer for Joshua to come down (because he had gone part of the way up the mountain so that he could watch out for Moses in case anything happened) they took things into their own hands. They turned to Aaron and demanded that he make them a figure to worship because they were beginning to think that Moses and God had abandoned them. Whilst it is very easy for us to look back on things and say that they had nothing to worry about, the people did not see that at the time. They were still in turmoil over what had happened and all that God had seen them through. Their memories of the enslavement times in Egypt were still fresh in their minds; and now they could not see past the current day.

We often get into the same sort of rut when we are faced with multiple things going wrong in our lives; we cannot see past the current day and so we look for the quick fixes to try and pacify our thirst for being in control of everything. If we are not careful we too will grab hold of the nearest fix which will probably be the wrong one! We then run with it because it makes us feel good at the time not thinking of future consequences.

God wants us to listen to Him and to be patient! He has not abandoned us and will never abandon us. If we focus on Him and His ways we will get to experience what God wants us to receive and not any quick fix we can find instead. God is with us!

Points to Ponder:
How long before you give up?

How long are you willing to wait for God?