11 Jan, 2011
Stinking Frogs
What do you worship?
“A large number of dead birds were found in the city of Falkoping, Sweden, Tuesday night and Wednesday morning… A similar unusual incident occurred in Arkansas on New Year's Eve. Thousands of red-winged blackbirds and starlings were found dead over a square-mile area in the town of Beebe… In a separate incident, some 500 red-winged blackbirds, starlings and sparrows were found dead Monday morning in the southern Louisiana community of Labarre.”
The mysterious deaths of a large number of birds in the last few weeks has had people all over the world talking. Watching the news stories and seeing photos of the carnage could not help but remind me of a certain well-known story from the Bible featuring Moses, a Pharoah, and lots of plagues.
News quote courtesy of CNN.com; Photo courtesy of google images
Exodus 8:1-6
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘This is what the LORD says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me. If you refuse to let them go, I will send a plague of frogs on your whole country. The Nile will teem with frogs. They will come up into your palace and your bedroom and onto your bed, into the houses of your officials and on your people, and into your ovens and kneading troughs. The frogs will come up on you and your people and all your officials.’”
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your staff over the streams and canals and ponds, and make frogs come up on the land of Egypt.’”
So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land.What does God’s Story scripture teach us about worshipping idols?
In this specific plague, Moses was instructed by God to have his brother Aaron stretch his hands out over the waters of Egypt, and gazillions of frogs crawled up out of the waters and onto the land, covering everything in sight. It says that frogs were in the houses and bedrooms, in the kneading troughs and ovens. They were everywhere.
As I studied some of the background of the Egyptian culture, I began to understand that of all the calamities brought against them, the frog plague hit a nerve. I read that archaeologists have found amulets carved in the form of frogs, showing that the Egyptians worshipped them. One particular Egyptian god named Hekt (or Heqet) had the head of a frog, or was sometimes pictured with the body of a frog as well. For this reason, it was likely that frogs could not be killed, kind of like the sacred rights of cows in India.One writer puts it this way: "The Egyptians were forced to loathe this slimy symbol of their depraved worship."
How can I connect today’s God’s Story scripture to my life?
When we talk about worshipping 'false gods' or 'idols,' it's easy to think that I'm exempt. I don't worship the sun or an image carved of wood or stone. But an idol doesn’t have to be something that’s evil -- it can be too much of anything “good” in my life. Anything else I depend on to get me through life, if it is not God, it is an idol.
But relationships can lead to disappointment. Knowledge can fail us. Service can go unnoticed. Strength can be weakened. Wealth can be stolen. Organization can become chaos. Talent can be broken.
If “something good” has become the center of my life -- which for me is a place reserved only for God -- then hard days, disappointments, failures, and moments of chaos have become a reminder to me that it is God alone who belongs on the throne, and that He needs to be my reason for living, my priority, my greatest joy in life.How can I connect today’s God’s Story scripture and my story to others?
The next time you receive a complement on something good in your life, take the opportunity to give credit to God. Acknowledge Him in front of that person for that “good thing” and allow Him to remain on the throne of your life.
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