Ezekiel 20:8
Most of us have sat down at some point and written out what we’re grateful for. And if we’re honest, it’s a strange thing to read that list back and realize how little we thought about God while any of it was happening.
That’s what God does in Ezekiel 20. He sits Israel’s elders down and recounts, in detail, everything he had done for them. He made himself known to them while they were still slaves in one of the strongest nations on earth. He promised to bring them out. He swore to give them a land of their own, a land flowing with milk and honey, a home for people who had nothing.
And how did they respond? “But they rebelled against me and were not willing to listen to me. None of them cast away the detestable things their eyes feasted on, nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt” (Ezekiel 20:8, ESV). They wouldn’t let go of the old gods, not even for the God who was about to rescue them. And when they finally walked out of Egypt, those idols walked out with them.
It’s tempting to read that and shake our heads. How could they? God had just proven himself right in front of them. Surely we’d never do the same thing.
But we’re wired the same way they were. God’s word doesn’t leave much room to doubt how easily this happens to any of us. “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5). Idolatry doesn’t always look like a statue on a shelf. It looks like clinging to whatever we can hold in our hands over trusting the God we can’t see, even after he’s already proven himself faithful to us too.
Here’s what’s easy to miss in this chapter. God doesn’t respond to their rebellion with only wrath. At times he punishes, and at times he extends mercy, and both are aimed at the same thing. He wants his people back. “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives” (Hebrews 12:6).
So before we get too comfortable judging Israel’s short memory, it’s worth asking where our own memory gets short. Where have we seen God provide, protect, or answer a prayer, and then quietly gone right back to trusting ourselves the next time something hard came along?
Jesus described the enemy plainly as a liar from the beginning (John 8:44). Satan doesn’t usually need much resistance to walk us into that same trap. He just needs us to forget what God has already done.
This week, take a real look at your own history with God. Not a general sense that he’s been good, but the specific moments. Write a few down if you need to. Then let those moments be the ones you remember the next time trusting him feels harder than trusting yourself.
