Judges 10:10-16 - Then
the Israelites cried out to the LORD, "We have sinned against you, forsaking our God and serving the Baals." The LORD replied,
"When the Egyptians, the Amorites, the
Ammonites, the Philistines, the Sidonians, the Amalekites
and the Maonites oppressed you and
you cried to me for help, did I not save you from their hands? But you have forsaken me and
served other gods, so I will no longer save you. Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen.
Let them save you when you are in trouble!" But the Israelites said to the LORD, "We
have sinned. Do with us whatever you think best, but please
rescue us now." Then they got rid
of the foreign gods among them and served the LORD. And he could
bear Israel's misery no longer.
Two more judges …Tola and Jair….45 years of peace…nothing
major even recorded in the scriptures about them. Then the cycle of destruction returns…a broken
record of sorts these Israelites seem to fall back on time and again. This time
…they don’t just worship other Gods…they leave God out of the picture
completely…for 18 years. God is so angry
with them…he refuses them help the first time they cry out...and tells them to
go ask the other gods they have been worshiping for help. But when they confess
their sin….and return to worship him alone…and tell him they will accept any
punishment he decides….God’s great compassion overcomes his anger…and he
recuses hem once more.
It reminds me of the way we all love our kids. One minute we
are boiling with anger over that messy room they were supposed to have cleaned…or
that bad grade they didn’t tell us they were getting. The next we are dictating
the worst punishment known to man...the grounding for life…or longer. Then we hear that small voice say they know
they were wrong…and they are sorry…and our heart melts into a more
compassionate parent…one who shortens the grounding to a month…or shorter as
time wears on and we see their remorse.
God just wants us to realize that we were wrong…and come to
him for help. Once we admit our sin…and
ask him to help us…even accept whatever discipline he brings to build us into
stronger people…he becomes that loving father once again…ready to show us how
to rely on only him again. The discipline
even becomes a way to build a stronger relationship with him…because it forces
us to concentrate more on the father…than we do the problem we had.
Father…I thank you that you never leave us…even when we
totally desert you…you stand ready to take us back into your loving arms…when
we repent of our sins…and turn from the things that separated us from you. I am
so very thankful that your compassion...it fails not…no matter what I have
done. Help me to increase the time I spend following you...so the cycle of my
own failures will become more distant to my mind. Help me to follow you so
closely that I forget that satan is out there trying to trick me way from you.
Amen.
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