Anyway, the Bible portion God
asked me to read was Judges 17:1-6.
17:1 And there was a man of mount
Ephraim, whose name was Micah.
17:2 And he said unto his mother, The
eleven hundred shekels of silver that were taken from thee, about which thou
cursedst, and spakest of also in mine ears, behold, the silver is with me; I
took it. And his mother said, Blessed be thou of the LORD, my son.
17:3 And when he had restored the
eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, his mother said, I had wholly
dedicated the silver unto the LORD from my hand for my son, to make a graven
image and a molten image: now therefore I will restore it unto thee.
17:4 Yet he restored the money unto
his mother; and his mother took two hundred shekels of silver, and gave them to
the founder, who made thereof a graven image and a molten image: and they were
in the house of Micah.
17:5 And the man Micah had an house
of gods, and made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who
became his priest.
17:6 In those days there was no king
in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
As I read, I got confused.
Questions that ran through my head were:
- Why will God ask me to read this passage?
- What did I steal?
- Which graven images did I make?
- This doesn’t seem like a good story; of what importance is it to me?
As I asked these questions,
thoughts were going through my mind of things I may’ve have done wrong that God
was trying to correct. It wasn’t until I read the last verse of the short Bible
portion (verse 6) did I come to understand what God was saying.
“17:6 In those days there was no king in Israel, but
every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”
When I got done
reading verse six, God immediately said, “But
you have a King. You have a King, so you can’t keep on doing whatever “you”
think is right. You have to do what “I” know is right. You can’t fix prayer
times when it’s convenient for you and push it anytime you like. You can’t
study your Bible just whenever you like or just gloss over it when you feel
you’re tired. You cannot do what “you” think is right. You should do what is
right in My own eyes.”
I was convicted. God
was right and I had been screwing up stuff in this God-given-God-owned life
that I live.
Many times we get so busy with
life and with what the LORD gives to us to the extent that we make graven images
of them – just like Micah’s mother did in Judges 17:1-6. Like Paul mentioned in
Romans 1, we sometimes adore the gift/creation and honor it more than the
Giver/Creator. These gifts I’m referring to could be jobs, money, career,
relationships, children, church positions and responsibilities, etc. With these
gifts God gives to us, we daily make graven images and worship them often as
gods. We do what is right in our own eyes and ask God to bless it. And because
we do not commit sins that have been tagged “big”, we have failed to see that
our individual lives are majorly controlled by gods that we have molded for
ourselves. Sometimes, we even go to the extent of gauging sins and labeling
them as not-so-bad, doesn’t-matter, or bad. So we sing any kind of music, watch
any kind of movie, have silly conversations – stuff that do not glorify God in
anyway or form, and say it doesn’t matter or it’s not as bad as we think. It truly
may not be “that bad”; but by revelation from this passage, and as people under
authority, God is saying to us, “You have
a King. You cannot keep on doing what seems right in your own eyes. I am your
King. You must do what is right in My own eyes.”
I’ve been taking steps to correct
this since that night, and God has been helping as I have daily and consciously
aligned myself to His own will and ways; remembering always that I have a King!
Are you convicted as well?
