The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight. They forgot about the Lord their God, and they served the images of Baal and the Asherah poles. But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help, the Lord raised up a rescuer to save them. So there was peace in the land for forty years. Judges 3:7, 9, 11
I decided back in May to start listening to my Bible. Listening instead of reading gives a different perspective. I use the YouVersion app and picked a bible plan that parses it up into a daily structure that is easy to follow. Some days I listen to it a lot, some days not so much depending on the level of chaos each day. I highly recommend this. It's amazing to be in God's Word.
Anyway, I am in Judges right now. WOW! That is a gory book. I am only up to Chapter 5 and I've had a couple of moments where I wince, groan and say ewwww. It was a very violent time for Israel. But here's is a pattern I've noticed so far.
- Israel does evil in the Lord's sight forgetting him and worshipping idols.
- They are captured and forced into what amounts to slavery by another nation. After they do this for a few years they cry out to the Lord to save them.
- The Lord rescues them and they live in peace.....until the cycle starts all over again.
I could spend some time talking about how amazed I am that they are so clueless but since I know I am sometimes clueless, I'd like to focus on the other aha moment I had.
God, even though they turned from him to fulfill their selfish desires, keeps showing up. You'd think after a couple hundred or so years of this childish, selfish behavior he would just walk away. Isn't that what we'd do?
If we were in a relationship with someone and they kept doing stuff to hurt us and themselves and then they got themselves into a real pickle and asked us to bail them out, how many times would we bail them out? How many times before we said "That's it. You are not learning from this. I'm done."?
I'm thinking we wouldn't tolerate it for too long. But, not God. He keeps responding to their call, he keeps showing up and helping them time and time again. And this is why I worship him. Because he also does that for me.