Following the lectionary appendix of the Devotional, this morning’s devotion comes from DZ.

“…as for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” (Exodus 32:1b, NIV)

No sooner has Moses has been called away to Mount Sinai by God than his people begin to “move on.” This happens despite a number of explicit warnings to the contrary, direct from the mouth of God, backed by thunder and lightning and smoking mountains (21:18).

Perhaps the Israelites have grown impatient, perhaps they are dissatisfied, or perhaps they’ve just given up. Whatever the case, they decide to take matters into their own hands and fashion an idol that can serve them according to their own schedule, the infamous golden calf.

Can you relate? There may have been a time in your life when the hand of God seemed easy to detect. A turning point, a time when you were brought out of the proverbial desert and delivered from an unhealthy relationship, sickness, or job. But then something happened. The new job didn’t pan out. Another relationship fell apart. The sickness returned. Suddenly, you “don’t know what has happened to him.” You feel abandoned and confused, and you find yourself asking, where did God go?!

These moments are much more common than most of us would care to admit. And like the Israelites, our patience is embarrassingly short and our faithfulness profoundly lacking. We move on. We regress. We focus our devotion somewhere more convenient and easier to control. We are constantly in the business of creating newer, shinier golden calves.

Where are you feeling God’s absence this week? Where are you feeling like a victim? Where is the idol factory at work, and what is it producing? Probably not what was intended.

The good news is that we may move on, but God does not. He did not abandon the Israelites to self-destruction, and He has not abandoned us either. Instead, He gave us His son, that we might be forgiven of our impatience and loved despite our faithlessness. The cross reminds us that God is present, especially when it looks like He is not. This is the Rock from which we can’t move on, however hard we might try.

COMMENTS

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