God does not need our help
April 9, 2008
Did you know that God does not really need our help to do things. Sometimes we just get in the way. God does let us do things so that we can help, but He can do a lot of it Himself.
In our verses today, Eli and his two sons have let the Ark of the Covenant, the place that God symbolically lives, go to war. God did not ask to go there they just did it. Of course, the ark get captured by the Philistines, and Israel is defeated by the war. The Philistines take our 'weak' God and put it in the house of their god Dagon, since he obviously helped them and is a stronger god.
1 Samuel 5:1-4 BBE
(1) Now the Philistines, having taken the ark of God, took it with them from Eben-ezer to Ashdod.
(2) They took the ark of God into the house of Dagon and put it by the side of Dagon.
(3) And when the people of Ashdod got up early on the morning after, they saw that Dagon had come down to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord. And they took Dagon up and put him in his place again.
(4) And when they got up early on the morning after, Dagon had come down to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord; and his head and his hands were broken off on the doorstep; only the base was in its place.
God clearly shows His power here. He does not need any Israelite to do any thing. In fact, because of the dis-respect He starts to put disease on the people and rats to destroy their crops. Not only has their god been made to look like a fool, they are getting sick. Isn't clear who the stronger God is now. And God did not need the help of anyone to do it.
Often in my own life, I feel like God has abandoned me. He is nowhere to be found in the circle of things that I am trying to do in my life. If I would just get out of the way of trying to do things for Him (my way I might add), then I might be able to see that He is in the enemy camp, taking out the problems from the other end.
God, I ask you to help us all to see when you are at work in ways that help us that we might not be able to understand. To see the good in the situations, to know when to put our hand to the work and when to take it away. In Jesus name... Amen
Read through the Bible in one year in Historical order
Today
1 Samuel 4:1-8:22
Tomorrow
1 Samuel 9:1-12:25
http://tinyurl.com/24beby for a daily reading tool
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