He worried about the longevity of devotion from these new subjects and whether the temple to God in Jerusalem would eventually turn the devotion of his people to the king of Judah instead. So what were his stressors? He ruled a new kingdom of individuals that previously belonged to the kingdom of Judah. He did not place his trust in the Lord that raised him to that position of power. He did not take that experience as evidence of God’s presence and faithfulness. Yet Jeroboam did not turn to God when stress and worries mounted. He is not of the line of David yet through a prophet he was promised 10 tribes of Israel by God. Jeroboam is an interesting character in the annals of Northern Israel. The physical things that they could see, hold, and potentially control but those idols did not bring a well of faith and spiritual strength to handle all that threatens the well being of humanity. Instead focusing on the goodness of God in the past and the promises and hope of God for the future, when changes abounded and things got hard and stress mounted, they turned to that which was familiar, old, and habit forming: the worship of idols. In the history of Israel, which we read about in 1 Kings, we see a kingdom that went from God centeredness to following those old comforting idols that brought more harm than good. But what might happen if in our times of stress or need, we turned to God in prayer and not to avoidance tactics or cakes? What would happen if we trusted in God in those high stress moments? What would it look like to rid ourselves of those idols that teach harmful habits and replace them with worship, prayer, and God? But I often turn to the comfort of my bed hunkering down trying to avoid the realities of life. Doesn’t your family do that?” We all have those things we turn to. Why? That’s a bit strange”.īill laughed and said that “whenever something was wrong, whether illness or stress, his family ate cake. I thanked her kindly for her thoughtfulness and when Bill came home that evening from work, I said “Bill your mom gave me pound cake to help me through my illness. Cake is the last thing I would ever want when I am sick. ![]() My mother-in-law went to the drug store and picked up my prescriptions and dropped them off at my house along with homemade matzo ball soup and a large pound cake. I was sick and uncomfortable and living far from home. ![]() When Bill and I first moved in together in 2008 and I first started employment at the preschool, I came down with bronchitis for the first and only time in my life. Those idols are often addictive and create habits that do us more harm than good. Sometimes it is that comfort food that we turn to when we are stressed, other times it is shopping or acquiring things we don’t need, perhaps it is an over reliance on social media, or using our work as a substitute for turning to God. Our idols may not be golden calves or bulls, but they do exist just as they did in the ancient world. Trusting in a God that we cannot see is the most difficult in times of change, when it becomes easier to rely on the old familiar idols that bring us comfort.
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