This past Sunday, we started studying the ten plagues of Egypt in Exodus. Some people love this part of the Bible. They love to see evil punished. They love to see justice carried out. Other people hate this part of the Bible, because they can’t believe that a loving God would deliberately hurt people. But both of these perspectives on the ten plagues aren’t really seeing them for what they really are.
In each plague, God is specifically confronting an idol worshiped by the Egyptians, Israelites, and even us. Idols like self-sufficiency, and family blessing, and security. And he’s doing it to show that he’ll provide everything that’s good, not the idols we keep turning to.
Do you believe that? I often don’t. Like when I didn’t get the Nintendo I really wanted for Christmas when I was a kid, or when we couldn’t get pregnant early in marriage, or when Apple stock tanked last month, taking out a good chunk of my retirement account (no emails about diversifying my portfolio, please!).
That’s why Psalm 34 is such a good reminder to me: “The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.” Sometimes lions can’t find any gazelles around to snack on. They grow weak and hungry. But not us. Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
What that means is that if something is good, God will give it to us. If it would have been good for me to get a VCR for Christmas, God would have given it to me. If it would have been good for me to retire early on my Apple riches, God would have given that to me. If anything would be good for us to get, God promises to give it to us!
Which means if he doesn’t give it to us, it wouldn’t be good. Sometimes God purposefully doesn’t give us things, and David explained why in Psalm 16 when he prayed, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.” No good apart from him. Sometimes God wants us to see that even if we only have him, that’s all we need, because he’s perfectly good.
God confronts our idols so we’ll learn to ask him to give us more of himself.