Don’t Forget God

Drawing yourself away from God is a gradual process. Usually, its not dramatic. You start missing church more often, because other things come up. Your child could have sports on Sundays. Maybe you cannot wake up in time for the service. You no longer can find time to read the bible. Maybe your routine was broken up with vacations or visitors or sickness, and you don’t get back into your routine. Each of these things adds up, and before you know it, you have drifted away from God.

In the bible, God has to remind the Israelites how he brought them out of Egypt. God worked wonders and miracles for them. God freed them from captivity in Egypt. God gave them Moses as their leader. Moses held out his staff and God parted the Red Sea. As they walked through the parted sea, the Egyptians chased after them with their chariots and armies. The Lord told Moses to stretch out his hand, and the sea covered the Egyptians chasing them. “Not so much as one of them remained.”

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the waters may come back upon the Egyptians, on their chariots, and on their horsemen.” And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and when the morning appeared, the sea returned to its full depth, while the Egyptians were fleeing into it. So the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea. Then the waters returned and covered the chariots, the horsemen, and all the army of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them. Not so much as one of them remained. But the children of Israel had walked on dry land in the midst of the sea, and the waters were a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.
–Exodus 14:26-29 (NKJV)

The parting of the Red Sea is very dramatic and miraculous. There was no denying God there. What happened after they were free and witnessed the dramatic escape and rescue? They must have thanked God everyday and been so faithful…or, maybe not. They became satisfied and proud and forgot God.

“But I have been the Lord your God
ever since you came out of Egypt.
You shall acknowledge no God but me,
no Savior except me.
I cared for you in the wilderness,
in the land of burning heat.
When I fed them, they were satisfied;
when they were satisfied, they became proud;
then they forgot me.”
–Hosea 13:4-6 (NIV)

When you go through a difficult time and chose to ask God for help, you are praying often. Praying and waiting. Praying and waiting. Praying and waiting. Then, God answers your prayers. You are jubilant! Praise God! Then, you go back to normal activities. Time passes and you forget to make God a priority each day. You become proud, feeling satisfaction about your own achievements, qualities, or possessions and forgetting the one responsible, God.

God created us. God created the universe. God knows human nature, yet God still gave us the power of choice. Each of each can choose God. Each of us can believe. God gave us a way out of our sinful condition. God gave us his only son, Jesus, to save us form our sins. Easter, celebrates the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. After dying on the cross, Jesus laid in the tomb for three days. Jesus shed his blood and gave us the ultimate sacrifice, his life, so our sins could be forgiven. On the third day after his crucifixion, our God raised Jesus up from the dead. Jesus ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of our father. Because of Jesus, we can always turn back to God. No matter what we do, God will take us back, if we ask for forgiveness.

Everything we have is a gift from God. We have to make God a priority. God gives and takes away. Each day is a blessing. Since God gave us another day on this earth, we should always find time for God. Its not always easy. Satan wants us to be distracted from our creator. Satan wants us to drift away from God. Some days, it can even be an internal struggle to carve out the time for God. When you make the time for God, its always worth it. God gives us all these blessings that we cannot see. My description of it is peace. I cannot possibly recognize each unseen blessing from God. I can only label it by ‘before’ and ‘after’. The ‘before’ spending time with God, feels like worry, your stomach in knots, heaviness, grinding your teeth, depression, sadness. The ‘after’ spending time with God, feels light, carefree, peace, delight, happiness, satisfaction, completeness. Once, you have the ‘after’ feelings, you want to make time for God. Don’t forget how you felt before spending time with God. Don’t forget God.