Stuffing

1 Samuel 4

At night James and I read some from his children's Bible as well as a portion of a kids devotional book.
Today's reading was from 1 Samuel 4
5 When the ark of the LORD's covenant came into the camp, all Israel raised such a great shout that the ground shook. 6 Hearing the uproar, the Philistines asked, "What's all this shouting in the Hebrew camp?"
When they learned that the ark of the LORD had come into the camp, 7 the Philistines were afraid. "A god has come into the camp," they said. "We're in trouble! Nothing like this has happened before. 8 Woe to us! Who will deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods? They are the gods who struck the Egyptians with all kinds of plagues in the desert. 9 Be strong, Philistines! Be men, or you will be subject to the Hebrews, as they have been to you. Be men, and fight!"

10 So the Philistines fought, and the Israelites were defeated and every man fled to his tent. The slaughter was very great; Israel lost thirty thousand foot soldiers. 11 The ark of God was captured
Apparently Israel wasn't doing so well at the battle thing.
So they decided to bring God into it.
And that got them excited!
Because you surely can't lose a battle if God is with you? Right?
Well, God was with them and they still got beat bad.
So what went wrong?
Because I see this today. People who have God with them, still getting beaten up.
I feel it too.
Did God want the Philistines to win?
Does God want us to lose?
Of course not!
But do we lose? Yes.
What is wrong then? Are we fighting battles that God does not want us to fight?
The problem in the story above seemed to be that the people weren't listening to God.
He told them in the previous chapter that he was going to execute judgment on sin (specifically on Eli's family but as he was the priest of Israel, that was kind of like judgment on Israel)
What God wanted from that was repentance. He wanted change. He didn't want to destroy Eli's family and many Israelites. He didn't want to, but they weren't listening.
Help us to stick close to you. To really listen to you. To repent and change when you want us to.

posted by Aphra @ 9/14/2010 10:25:00 PM