Exodus 32:1: “Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, ‘Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.'”

December 6th, 2022 by Pastor Ed in devotional

Moses, the people’s leader, was not present; and like Eve alone in Eden without Adam, the children of God started going sideways. After 38 days, in spite of thunder and lightening on the mountain, the people were tired of waiting. They come to Aaron with a strange demand, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us.” They seemed to have a destination in mind. We can only guess but it must have been the Promised Land. They intended to go on without the God who had delivered them out of Egypt. They were all too willing to follow any substitute god, a god of their own design, in an attempt to finish what God Almighty had started.

Down through the ages, many have struggled with this same problem. We are walking along with the Lord, when suddenly we cannot see Him anymore. So we simply replace His guidance with our own energy, making decisions in our own flesh. That is what was happening in the 1st-century church, which brought these frustrated words from the pen of the Apostle Paul:

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? (Galatians 3:1–3)

They were substituting a vital, living relationship with the real God for “religious” actions. We need to be careful to avoid trusting our own “wisdom” instead of seeking the wisdom of God.

“LORD, we don’t want to trust in our own flesh when we can’t clearly discern Your voice. Help us to simply wait on You to direct our lives.”