The Golden Calf |
We revert to what we are familiar with under duress, or when we don’t know what else to do. Consider the people who said:
" Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses, we don't know what has happened to him." (Exodus 32:2)
They had seen the plagues in Egypt, they had experienced the Passover, they had witnessed the red sea part, and passed through. Now after a short wait for the spiritual message they give up and revert to what they knew, demanding that Aaron the priest make them a golden calf to worship.
What do you revel in? What gods go before you in your daily life? Cars, homes, Sports, Movies? We revert so quickly. Our rote response kicks in and we do what is practically a reflex. And so often these things are so far from our real spiritual encounters that it is a wonder that the ten commandments survived at all.
In reviews of actual police shoot-outs where officers died, they found pockets full of casings. Precious seconds had been wasted in the heat of battle to pick up the empties, not because it was a good idea but because that is what they had done in training! (This practice was changed.) So what have you conditioned yourself to do? What is on your training table?
When we come to worship, and we seek to worship in spirit and truth, we may be under pressure that we are not used to. It may take longer to get it started than we had thought or planned for. The rest of our life enters in at these points and we revert to what we know. “We don’t know what became of that guy who went up the mountain, let’s do what we always did.”
What’s in your worship?
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