When Do We Need God?
Too many people in this world turn to God only when times are hard and tend to forget Him when things are going well for them. The children of Israel, as recorded in the book of Judges, made this mistake over and over again in their history as a nation. During the period of the judges, especially, they would often turn to idol worship when God had blessed them and things were going well, only to be punished by God until they cried out for Him and returned to Him and were blessed again, only to turn to idols again….
Too many people today turn to their worldly idolatrous ways again once God blesses them and they forget God until times are hard again and expect God to find this on-again, off-again relationship to be acceptable. The truth is we need God in every moment of our lives whether they are joyous or tragic and should not try to use Him as a way to get through tough times only.
God wants to share every moment of our lives with us and we should ever live as if we are always in His presence, which we are. Indeed our service to God should be the chief factor of joy in our lives. Serving Him should bring us joy and should be the reason for our existence, so much so that to be without Him or to forget Him for a moment, should cause us to feel despair and loneliness that we cannot bear.
We should take David’s advice as found in Psalm 32:11 “Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous; And shout for joy, all you upright in heart!” We should find our joy and reason to rejoice in the Lord and place all our hope and trust in Him until we find we do need Him every hour, as the Hymn goes. When we can do this we won’t find ourselves in the same vicious cycle of blessings and curses that the children of Israel were in in ancient times, as I already mentioned.
Though we may turn to God with honest and sincere hearts when things are not going well for us, we must be sure that we do not forget Him when He subsequently blesses us and things go well for us. Indeed God cannot really do His work of transforming our lives unless we give ourselves entirely and willingly to Him and this means in every aspect of our lives, not just when we are in despair or physical need.
As He told the children of Israel over and over (Deuteronomy 28) if we will keep His commandments we will be blessed, but if we do not we will be cursed with the worst curses imaginable, if not in this life then in the life to come. This is not to say that we hove forgotten God if hard times fall upon us, but ultimately we will go to a place where such things are done away with and we will be blessed beyond our imagination, if we remain faithful.
So, if it seems at times that we are cursed with problems and hardship in our lives, we should not think God has forsaken us, because such things may not be from God at all, but could be Satan’s way of tempting us to forsake our service to God. Remember what happened to Job. God will probably not allow things to get as bad as they did for him, but even if He did, we must remain faithful as Job did.
My point is that we should remember and continue to serve our God with every fiber of our being whatever comes in this life. If He is the source of joy in our lives, as He should be, we will have joy despite the hardship or the blessings we encounter along the way. Let us keep our heart and minds centered on Him and stay in constant communication with Him through prayer and study, come what may in this life.
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