Have I Been Neglecting God?
Scripture Passage: Deuteronomy 32:15-25 (NASB)
15 But Jeshurun became fat and kicked—
You have become fat, thick, and obstinate—
Then he abandoned God who made him,
And rejected the Rock of his salvation.
16 They made Him jealous with strange gods;
With abominations they provoked Him to anger.
17 They sacrificed to demons, who were not God,
To gods whom they have not known,
New gods who came lately,
Whom your fathers did not know.
18 You forgot the Rock who fathered you,
And forgot the God who gave you birth.
19 “The Lord saw this, and spurned them
Because of the provocation by His sons and daughters.
20 Then He said, ‘I will hide My face from them,
I will see what their end will be;
For they are a perverse generation,
Sons in whom there is no faithfulness.
21 They have made Me jealous with what is not God;
They have provoked Me to anger with their idols.
So I will make them jealous with those who are not a people;
I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation,
22 For a fire has flared in My anger,
And it burns to the lowest part of Sheol,
And devours the earth with its yield,
And sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.
23 ‘I will add misfortunes to them;
I will use up My arrows on them.
24 They will be wasted by famine, and emaciated by plague
And a bitter epidemic;
And the teeth of beasts I will send against them,
With the venom of crawling things of the dust.
25 Outside the sword will make them childless,
And inside, terror—
Both young man and virgin,
The nursing child with the man of gray hair.
SUMMARY
In this passage, Israel who has grown “fat, thick, and sleek” forsakes God. Israel idolizes other gods, forgetting God, in this way, provoking God, angering Him, and making him jealous for them. As a consequence, God hides His face from them, for they are a perverse generation in whom there is no faithfulness. God therefore heaps misfortunes on Israel, bringing famine, plagues, destruction, and terror.
MEDITATION & REFLECTION
Going over this passage of unfaithfulness of Israel, I realized I had the same heart as Israel. This week, I haven’t really had quiet time with God until today, where I caught up in the entire week in one day and I did it more because I needed to submit it for the website. I realized that I had “forgotten” and had “forsaken” God without any regards towards God, angering him and making him jealous for me.
God placed a heavy weight in my heart asking me whether God is “king” in my life, and do I believe that? If I do, why didn’t I have quiet time with God the entire week? I checked my heart, my own faithfulness to God, and I deeply searched my soul to come to the conclusion that I was unfaithful, that the anxieties I experienced this week was because I wasn’t truly trusting God. I found myself relying on myself, relying on my job, on my skills, on my education, on what I had to do and thought capable of doing, maybe even idolizing all of it, including the comforts and blessings God has brought upon me, including financial stability, his inheritance, his promises, his gifts, but at the core, idolizing the blessings and forgetting God, just like Israel.
I was convicted of the perversion of my heart in failing to recognize God in my life, honor Him for everything He has done and he always does, and to attribute everything I have as His.
At the same time, going over the passage, on a first impression though I thought how “scary” God is who purposefully chose to “hide His face” and brings in misfortunes, destruction, and terror, I realized that the reason why God does this is because of how stubborn we are, and He is attempting in love, to just bring us back to Him.
Understanding the intensity in which God chooses to pursue us, I saw how deeply God loves us, how persistently He seeks us, and how patiently He waits for us.
APPLICATION
At the conviction of “neglecting” and “forgetting” God, He put it in my heart to sing songs of worship, that will help me remember what I have gone through in life, how God had delivered in my struggles, so I remain faithful to Him, and I am grateful knowing that everything comes from Him because He is so good and he just loves me no matter what. I will seek Him not only in my thoughts, in my meditations but also reading more frequently His word, as soon as I wake up and right before my sleep.
PRAYER
God, thank you for pursuing me always so diligently, for reminding me of who you are, how much you love me. Thank you for showing me where you always are, for giving the confidence that you are always leading my life, for letting me know that you make the way, that everything is under your control, that everything happens just as you plan it, in your perfect timing. Help me seek you, and be patient, to trust you that even when I do not see you, I don’t know how you are moving, I remain faithful to you. Discipline me so my stubborn heart may not walk away from you, that I learn to rebuke myself and come back to you. Teach me your ways, and bring me closer to you. Give me discernment so that in my heart’s perversion I may not walk away from you, that I will not neglect you or forsake you. Hold on to me tightly for I really need you in my heart. Thank you for your faithfulness and your unfailing love. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
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