Experience

“Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. There was under His feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. And He did not lay His hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank.” (Exodus 24:9-11)

“So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” (Exodus 32:3-5)

One of the great things about reading Scripture is that you occasionally notice things you have not made the connection between before. Having recently gone through Exodus, it clicked with me just how absurd the passages above look when placed next to each other. In one you have the only instance in Scripture where a group of people see God, and it specifically lays out that God did not destroy them in the process. In the latter we see Israel, some of whom have seen and had a meal with God, construct an idol in the shape of a calf and say “These are your gods!”

Like I said. Absurd.

The men of Israel, Aaron included, have seen something no other earthling has seen, and experienced something no other earthling has experienced. Yet at maximum 40 days later, they have lost sight of the amazing things and experiences God granted them. If this wasn’t enough, in Leviticus 10 Nadab and Abihu, during what basically amounts to the opening ceremonies of the Tabernacle, offer fire they were not authorized to offer and are killed by God. Like Aaron and the elders of Israel, they too are listed as participants in the feast on the mountain with God.

How quickly experiences fade from memory. This is not to say they are bad, only that we cannot rely on an incredible experience to keep us faithful. If we build our faith and lives around an experience, rather than the One who gives them to us, it becomes very easy for that faith to fade quickly over time with the impact of the memory.

God granted those men what they needed (possibly far more than they needed), to know Him and be faithful to Him. He does the same for us as well. All we need in order to know Him and be faithful is granted to us, whether that be His Word or and experience we need to have. But while we can (and should!) rejoice in and make use of that experience, we must also take care we do not build are faith on it, but on our Lord and Savior who it all revolves around.

Take joy in what you are given by God! Whether it be knowledge, wisdom, faith, experience, or something else to keep you faithful, He has given it to you for His glory and your good. Rejoice in it, and let it cause you to hold to Him ever more closely as you walk through life.