Going rogue
This week's verses are Isaiah 30:1-3:
I woke up to these verses yesterday for my morning reading, and they've been haunting the back of my mind since. I love the word obstinate. It means stubborn, not yielding to argument, authority, or treatment. Most children these days seem to be obstinate:
"Hey put some more wood on the fire." "No, I'm on the phone."
"Eat your vegetables." "Nope."
"Go get some exercise." "I don't want to."
"Don't do drugs." "It's my body. You have no right to talk to me about it."
"If you don't do your homework, you won't succeed." "I don't care."
Sound familiar? God calls the Israelites "obstinate children." As in, they're acting like a bunch of bratty kids, stubborn teenagers, problem children. It's the terrible twos, except they're adults making decisions with adult consequences. Picture a five year old behind the wheel of a car pulling into traffic, a teenage girl going off for a weekend in the cabin with her drug dealer boyfriend when her parents are out of town, or the three year old who keeps throwing his food on the floor to see what his parents are going to do about it. That was Israel. Ouch.
Usually when God is angry with Israel, he plays on their unfaithfulness. He calls them prostitutes, adulteresses, etc. Calling them obstinate children seems to strike closer to home for some reason. They aren't betraying God and choosing another being to worship. That's something not many of us can relate to easily. Instead, they're just stubbornly pursuing a path that's no good. I think every one of us has done that at some point or another.
God's saying to Israel: "Look, I didn't tell you to make those plans." Sometimes we just decide to do things, and then they don't work out and we get upset. The Israelites were in the process of doing that by forming an alliance with Egypt against another enemy. We know now that it didn't end well for them, but at the time they didn't know that. It seemed wise. They were about to get invaded from the northeast. Egypt was a superpower in the region, so why not get their protection?
That's brilliant, except for one thing: Egypt is the horror they fled from only generations before. Egypt held Israel in bondage for hundreds of years. They were slaves. Why would you go back to that? My guess is that they were so scared of the enemy coming from the northeast that they were up for pretty much anything. But how many times do we do that?
I've known plenty of people who have "gone back to Egypt" when things got rough. "Dude, you just quit smoking like a week ago, what happened?" "Hey, when did you start drinking again? Don't you remember how that turned out last time? You almost lost your license!" "You got back together with him? The last three times you did that, he cheated on you! Last time he even gave you an STI!" When the troops are massing on the border, we all have a tendency to go back to the protection that comes from being in bondage. We know deep down that it's bad, but we're obstinate children.
God says that Pharaoh's protection will be to their shame, and Egypt's shade will bring disgrace. I can picture a highway sign by the Red Sea that says "Egypt's shade will bring disgrace," with the Israelite envoys walking stubbornly past it, purposefully looking the other way. We know, but we don't want to know.
A colleague of mine used to run protection details for cruise ships. Part of his job was to know how to stop the boat if he needed to. One time, he asked a skipper how to stop his ship, and the guy's explanation made no sense. So my colleague asked him "How does that work? It doesn't make any sense." And the skipper answered, "I don't know. It just do what it do." We're like that sometimes. We just do what we do. It makes no sense.
We don't have to do that though. Why would God warn the Israelites if what they were doing was predetermined? Why sound the dive alarm if there's no time to pull up and veer away from the mountain? We can make a different choice. We don't need the disgrace that's found in Egypt's shade, or the shame of turning to a tyrant for protection and ending up enslaved.
God says "Woe to the obstinate children." Woe is not a good thing. Woe means "you don't want to be that guy." But why are children obstinate? Are they just evil creatures that make poop and eat all of your food? Or is it something else? I think it comes down to them not knowing that their parents love them and want what's best for them.
If the Israelites really trusted that God would protect them from their enemies, would they have still chosen to compromise their future with Pharaoh? If they had truly felt love for God, would they have still gone down there without asking His advice first? If they had understood the degree to which God had intervened in their history by leading them out of Egypt, would they really have turned back to go there again? I don't know. We can't know. All we know is that God saw what they were doing and warned them what would happen. He loves us.
I think we each have our own reasons for being obstinate. The important thing is for us to recognize that we have that in us, and to find out what it is that makes us that way. Anything that causes us to go rogue when it matters the most is something we should root out. Do we not trust God? Do we not understand the depth of his love for us? Have we forgotten where we came from? Why do even mature Christians act like obstinate children?
So once again, we can learn from the troubles the Israelites had thousands of years ago. We're still human and God is still God. We should know better by now, but isn't that what parents always say to obstinate children?
“Woe to the obstinate children,”
declares the Lord,
“to those who carry out plans that are not mine,
forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit,
heaping sin upon sin;
who go down to Egypt
without consulting me;
who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection,
to Egypt’s shade for refuge.
But Pharaoh’s protection will be to your shame,
Egypt’s shade will bring you disgrace.
I woke up to these verses yesterday for my morning reading, and they've been haunting the back of my mind since. I love the word obstinate. It means stubborn, not yielding to argument, authority, or treatment. Most children these days seem to be obstinate:
"Hey put some more wood on the fire." "No, I'm on the phone."
"Eat your vegetables." "Nope."
"Go get some exercise." "I don't want to."
"Don't do drugs." "It's my body. You have no right to talk to me about it."
"If you don't do your homework, you won't succeed." "I don't care."
Sound familiar? God calls the Israelites "obstinate children." As in, they're acting like a bunch of bratty kids, stubborn teenagers, problem children. It's the terrible twos, except they're adults making decisions with adult consequences. Picture a five year old behind the wheel of a car pulling into traffic, a teenage girl going off for a weekend in the cabin with her drug dealer boyfriend when her parents are out of town, or the three year old who keeps throwing his food on the floor to see what his parents are going to do about it. That was Israel. Ouch.
Usually when God is angry with Israel, he plays on their unfaithfulness. He calls them prostitutes, adulteresses, etc. Calling them obstinate children seems to strike closer to home for some reason. They aren't betraying God and choosing another being to worship. That's something not many of us can relate to easily. Instead, they're just stubbornly pursuing a path that's no good. I think every one of us has done that at some point or another.
God's saying to Israel: "Look, I didn't tell you to make those plans." Sometimes we just decide to do things, and then they don't work out and we get upset. The Israelites were in the process of doing that by forming an alliance with Egypt against another enemy. We know now that it didn't end well for them, but at the time they didn't know that. It seemed wise. They were about to get invaded from the northeast. Egypt was a superpower in the region, so why not get their protection?
That's brilliant, except for one thing: Egypt is the horror they fled from only generations before. Egypt held Israel in bondage for hundreds of years. They were slaves. Why would you go back to that? My guess is that they were so scared of the enemy coming from the northeast that they were up for pretty much anything. But how many times do we do that?
I've known plenty of people who have "gone back to Egypt" when things got rough. "Dude, you just quit smoking like a week ago, what happened?" "Hey, when did you start drinking again? Don't you remember how that turned out last time? You almost lost your license!" "You got back together with him? The last three times you did that, he cheated on you! Last time he even gave you an STI!" When the troops are massing on the border, we all have a tendency to go back to the protection that comes from being in bondage. We know deep down that it's bad, but we're obstinate children.
God says that Pharaoh's protection will be to their shame, and Egypt's shade will bring disgrace. I can picture a highway sign by the Red Sea that says "Egypt's shade will bring disgrace," with the Israelite envoys walking stubbornly past it, purposefully looking the other way. We know, but we don't want to know.
A colleague of mine used to run protection details for cruise ships. Part of his job was to know how to stop the boat if he needed to. One time, he asked a skipper how to stop his ship, and the guy's explanation made no sense. So my colleague asked him "How does that work? It doesn't make any sense." And the skipper answered, "I don't know. It just do what it do." We're like that sometimes. We just do what we do. It makes no sense.
We don't have to do that though. Why would God warn the Israelites if what they were doing was predetermined? Why sound the dive alarm if there's no time to pull up and veer away from the mountain? We can make a different choice. We don't need the disgrace that's found in Egypt's shade, or the shame of turning to a tyrant for protection and ending up enslaved.
God says "Woe to the obstinate children." Woe is not a good thing. Woe means "you don't want to be that guy." But why are children obstinate? Are they just evil creatures that make poop and eat all of your food? Or is it something else? I think it comes down to them not knowing that their parents love them and want what's best for them.
If the Israelites really trusted that God would protect them from their enemies, would they have still chosen to compromise their future with Pharaoh? If they had truly felt love for God, would they have still gone down there without asking His advice first? If they had understood the degree to which God had intervened in their history by leading them out of Egypt, would they really have turned back to go there again? I don't know. We can't know. All we know is that God saw what they were doing and warned them what would happen. He loves us.
I think we each have our own reasons for being obstinate. The important thing is for us to recognize that we have that in us, and to find out what it is that makes us that way. Anything that causes us to go rogue when it matters the most is something we should root out. Do we not trust God? Do we not understand the depth of his love for us? Have we forgotten where we came from? Why do even mature Christians act like obstinate children?
So once again, we can learn from the troubles the Israelites had thousands of years ago. We're still human and God is still God. We should know better by now, but isn't that what parents always say to obstinate children?
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