Psalm 78:32,34 – In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; in spite of His wonders, they did not believe. Whenever God slew them, they would seek Him; they eagerly turned to Him again. (NIV)
No other nation throughout the Bible, and perhaps throughout history, did God bless more than He did Israel. No other nation was witness to so many acts of God, so many miracles, or so many times of redemption. Yet they continually disobeyed Him and turned their backs on Him time after time. That is, until things got bad for them. Then again they turned back to God to deliver them.
Everyone knows what a "fair weather friend" is. Well, the nation of Israel was like what today I would call a Bad Weather Christian. As long as things were going their way, as long as times were good, they put God aside. But as soon as things took a turn for the worse they went running back to God, begging Him to save them again.
How many of us do the same thing in our own daily lives? When our jobs are going well and our health is good, we don't seem to have the time to spend talking to God. Many times we don't even take the time to thank Him for the blessings we have, like a good job and good health. Many of us even take it a step further and begin to give ourselves credit for the way our life is going. But as soon as our job gets a little too stressful, or our health gets a little bad, we fall on our knees asking God to "rescue" us. The problem is not that God does not want to hear about the bad things in our life, or that he does not want to help us out in troubled times. The problem is that God deserves our time even more when things are going well. After all, He is the one responsible for all that we have. We need to be devoted Christians, during the calm sunny days as well as the stormy days.
None of us want to end up like Israel. God removed His hand from that nation, a nation that was His chosen people, because they continually turned away from Him. Let us not let the same thing happen in our lives.
Prayer: O God, today and every day, give us the faith and strength to walk the Christian walk. We have been guilty of being Bad Weather Christians, Lord, and we ask you to forgive us. Amen.
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