The Israelites assumed that God would go before them in battle if they just carried the Ark of God out before them. It was a token gesture of trust in God. In fact, the Israelites were not interested in letting God be the God of their lives at this stage. This was the period when “everyone did as he saw fit” (Judges 21:25). They were all living out their own agendas in disregard of God. But suddenly, when things didn’t go well, they decide that they should go and get the Ark of the Covenant and carry it into battle. The result is that the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines, an indication of the fact that the hearts of the Israelites had already been captured by the pagans. So, in a sense, the Ark went where the hearts of the people already were, into the temple of the pagan gods. The sad thing about this story is that if the people had acknowledged their waywardness to God, he would have forgiven them at once. But instead they made this insulting token gesture of trust when they did not trust God at all. Make it clear to yourself whether you are going to entrust your life to God or not. If you have gone astray, know that God will always receive you back. But don’t go through life making token gestures of spirituality to cover for the fact that you never intended to yield your life to God in the first place.
Yield yourself, your goals, your ambitions and your dreams to God.
Read 1 Samuel 4
