Wouldn’t you think God would get sick of us?

As I am reading along in the Chronological Bible, I just finished the uplifting passages that record Joshua’s leadership over the nation of Israel.

Shortly after the rousing conclusion when he basically says…make up your minds people.

Are you going to follow little g gods or Jehovah…the I Am…the one who brought us through and has given us promises and the ability and help we need to fulfill all of them?

You can almost hear the swelling score of a finale as he declares…I don’t know about you, but as for me and mine…WE WILL SERVE THE LORD.

All the people weep and mourn and say US TOO!! Yesss!!

Cue the fist bumps and goose bumps and tears on the faces of the audience as a fancy scripted….”and they lived happily ever after” … scrolls up the screen.

And then you turn the page and land in Judges and have mercy.

It’s one fiasco of human mess after another.

A cycle of falling away from God…suffering oppression and depression…crying out…repenting…and God comes in and saves the day again.

And again.

And…yet again.

I am only on the second cycle as of this morning and I am already sick of Israel.

Sick of them and yet their ridiculous behavior reminds me of someone…me.

I listened to a good sermon yesterday from Grace Covenant in Austin.

The pastor was talking about our need to acknowledge that we are all creatures of the flesh.

We all will struggle throughout our lives against a strong nature that gets off track easily. He reminded us we are constantly in a cycle of seeking the secret of Contentment.

We find our true… never-run-dry in knowing that our approval is from God alone… contentment.

We believe and declare that to have Him is to have all that we need.

Yet we wander from this truth as we begin to get worried about anything that might threaten our state of contentment.

Circumstances…opinions of others…self-thought and self-doubt…addiction to the good feeling of “contentment” instead of worship of the One who is our contentment.

Exalting BEING content instead of the ONE who sustains us.

So we cycle off into trying to secure the other things that we think will bring us peace until we realize that we have erected some altars and stuck some Ashera poles in the ground and made friends with fascinations…and boom…

We have run amok once again and we cry out and The God who saved us…rescues our sorry, messy selves yet another time.

We may get sick of us…but He has pity on us and extends to mercy to us and never washes His hands of us…but bears the scars of us on His own hands.

He personally carried our sins in His body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By His wounds you are healed    1 Peter 2:24    NLT   <3