Do you carry mementos of your past with you to remind you of your past victories? Do you use those same mementos as a reference point to determine how you choose your path forward?
Gideon made the gold into a sacred ephod and put it on display in his hometown, Ophrah. All Israel prostituted itself there. Gideon and his family, too, were seduced by it. (Judges 8:27 MSG)
Gideon had a huge victory over the nation of Midian who had been oppressing the Israelites. He had just captured and executed the two kings that were the main drivers of the Israelite oppression and returned home with his trophy– an ephod (an ornate garment worn by priests when providing an oracular means of discerning God’s will and direction) he created out of the spoils of war. He originally put the ephod on display at his hometown as a memorial for the victory God had given him and the nation over the Midianiates, but that soon became a source of idolatry. We read in verse 27 that “all Israel prostituted itself there.” So instead of simply serving as a memorial to remember, it became the place where people went to find direction devoid of the God that rescued them.
You may ask where I am getting that information from, but the key word in this passage is “prostituted.” Here the word is used in this context as a way to show that there was no devotion to God from the memory of the victory, but of making sacrifices to gain favor from a piece of clothing with some gold attached to it as if it were a god, like it could do something to replicate the outcome of what the cloth represented. Gideon and his family who were so close to God’s miraculous victory were tempted by it also, and perhaps even sometimes mistakened it for God in error.
We sometimes do that with mementos of our past victories — photos, diplomas, facebook/instragram posts, awards, trophies, rings, tickets, and all that other weird stuff you keep in a box, post online, or hang on a wall somewhere. Having those mementos are great, but they should remind us of God who deserves our worship. We don’t need to go back to those things hoping for the same results, and in fact, if we do, we’ll end up depressed because it won’t be like it was. Those things that we hang on to, they will never be as great as what God will do for us next.
We need to look for God in our present. We need to call for God in our now. We must ask God to give us discernment and bless our decisions not on our past but what He is doing in our present and future. Don’t let mementos be the idols keeping you back from your present future.
No responses yet