The God We Need

Recently I have been reading the book of Judges, which is one of my favorite Old Testament books. In Judges, we read all kinds of incredible stories of how God works in behalf of his people, and we also see a lot of really cool examples of how God can use people who seem fairly insignificant to do some amazing things. There is a flip side to the book of Judges, however. Not only does this book give us incredible pictures of God's might, but it also serves as a sad commentary on the Israelites and their lives. The story of the book is cyclical: the Israelites start worshiping other gods, God allows them to be oppressed by other nations as a result, the Israelites wise up and cry to God for help, God raises up a judge to save them, and then when the judge dies the Israelites revert to idolatry and the whole cycle starts over again. Because of this sad history, over and over again we read something like "Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord."

Judges 10 is a good example of how the Israelites keep going back to false gods. Verse 6 says that they again did evil in the eyes of the Lord and "served the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites and the gods of the Philistines."

Sheesh! That's quite the list. It's not just that the Israelites forsake the true God for one idol. They're grabbing every god they can find.

Why do they do this? Why are the Israelites so quick to forget about the God who miraculously brought their ancestors out of slavery in Egypt, who parted the Red Sea, who took care of them in the wilderness, who drove out the previous residents of the Promised Land, and who had already delivered them by several of his judges?

I think that the Israelites tended to worship whatever god met their needs at the time. When they were being oppressed and needed rescuing, they turned to the God of Abraham because he was the only one who could come through. But when life was going alright--when no foreign invaders were threatening their borders and when the crops were fruitful--they worshiped idols because that's what was convenient. After all, a statue doesn't make too many demands. It's was a lot easier to worship Baal than it was to live the holy life God had called them to. So they followed whatever god fit the occasion.

Sadly, we probably do similar things today. We follow other gods when it's convenient. Granted, most people don't bow down to statues or sacrifice an animal on an altar. But we rely on things other than god until those things fail to give us what we need. A person might put their trust in their bank account because it takes pretty good care of them. Or a person's god could be himself, and he believes that he has the ability and the smarts to navigate life just fine. Another person might place his trust in a relationship, because as long as that is going well, there's no problems. Now in the event that the gods are unable to give us what we need--when bank accounts dry up, a relationship crumbles, or the Philistines invade the land--that's when we'll worry about God. In the meantime, though, it can be easy to think we don't need him. After all, these other gods don't call us to love our enemies, serve the outcasts, or be truthful. They are a lot more convenient.

The problem, of course, is that none of these other gods can give us what we really need. They have no power. It was the same for Israel's idols, and God calls them out on it. Back in Judges 10, when the Philistines and Ammonites overtake the Israelites and the cry out to God to rescue them once again, God says, "Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble!" (Jgs. 10:14). The point is that those gods can't do that. They're just blocks of wood and chunks of stone.

Likewise, any false gods we bring into our lives lack the power that we need from a god. We might like that they don't demand much from us, but we're not crazy about their impotence. So we try to go back and forth--calling on the true God when we need him but returning to idols when it's convenient. It's like choosing what I should wear today based on the weather forecast. I look for a god that meets the needs of the moment. But that's not the kind of god that God wants to be. He's not just another t-shirt in my dresser. He's all there is. He's the God for every occasion--for when life is going well, and also for when it's not. Anything else is a cheap imitation. And no one really wants a knockoff.