I’m always amazed when I read the story about the golden calf. When Moses failed to return from meeting with God on top of a smoking, blazing mountain, the Israelites panicked and fashioned a idol. Turning from the mountain, they bowed instead to this hand-crafted god.
Why ditch the Lord so quickly? Why substitute an image for the living God? How did they eat manna for breakfast and later thank this shiny cow for their supper?
The Lord frightened them. The children of Israel (not all of them, it should be noted) wanted control over their lives and futures, and so they needed control over their god.
I’m much the same. I cannot fully grasp the Lord or totally understand his ways. He’s mysterious, and yet requires my allegiance. God is strict. I watch lots of people move away from the Lord for this reason. Better the flattering self than a master with rules. One modern teacher epitomized such faulty thinking: All you need is already within you, only you must approach your self with reverence and love.
Yet the Scriptures tell a different story. The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure. Who can understand it? “I the Lord search the heart
and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct,
according to what their deeds deserve.”
What we need is definitely not already within us. We need a touch from the God atop that smoking mountain. We need to lean into our Creator. God is still God and his ways, while stringent, lead to our flourishing. Ditch the cheap gods in your life. Avoid the substitute. Stick with the real thing.
Exodus 32 & Jeremiah 9 in Through the Bible in 2024
Photo by Possessed Photography
I just read this story today, and I was amazed too, that the people who saw a literal sea opened abandoned that God so quickly. And what about Aaron? He lied to Moses about how casting the gold calf, likely because he knew he was busted. How easy it is to revert to covering oneself when caught.