Free To Be Me

I was finishing up Judges the other day, and the last verse of chapter 21 not only stood out to me - it struck me as a good theme for entirety of the book.

"In those days, there was no king in Israel.  Everyone did what was right in his own eyes."  Judges 21:25

If you aren't familiar with Judges, the short version is this:  the Israelites would do evil in the sight of the Lord, they were then taken captive or invaded by the enemy, then they cried out to God for deliverance, then a judge came and helped them out, then they had peace for a while, and then the process was repeated all over again.  The first time you read a cycle you kind of feel for the Israelites a little bit.  The sixth time through, not only is it redundant, but you're almost screaming at the page - "Why don't you get it already?!"  The Israelites can be pretty dense at times.


The reason this particular verse stood out to me, I think, is because I started wondering how many times that would be said about my own life.  How often, were there a book of Jacob, would there be a verse that said, "And Jacob did what was right in his own eyes."  It scares me, really.  Every day, probably every hour and minute, I do what I want, when I want to do it.  And the way I choose isn't always the way God expects from a follower of His.


I am realizing more and more that while I laugh to myself at how silly and dense the Israelites were at times, I can be just as silly and dense - if not more so.  Lessons like these are hard to learn because they strike at the core of the issue, my pride.  In order to truly work on being more like Christ in this area, I must first swallow my pride and admit my fault.  It is also lessons like these that make me glad for verses like Romans 8:29: 

"For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers." (emphasis added)

God is daily working to conform me to the image of his Son.  It is a work in progress and I am not nearly there.   It is a long road to travel toward Christ's completed work of sanctification in our lives, but the good news is that we are in it together as brothers and sisters in Christ.

So, if you catch me being like the Israelites, you have my complete permission to give me a gentle reproach - in the form of an all-out head-knocking, if necessary...