Week 25: Day 2

Intro: Hello and welcome to Orbit, a short reflection to help you put God at the centre of your life from the team behind Satellites - my name is Zachary Gain and I’ll be taking you through today’s passage. Each weekday we share a little bit of the Bible with you, give you a chance to pray and think about it, and provide you with one practical way to put it into practice today.

Bible: Today's reading comes from Exodus chapter 9:1-7
Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Go to Pharaoh and say to him, “This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘Let my people go, so that they may worship me.’ If you refuse to let them go and continue to hold them back, the hand of the Lord will bring a terrible plague on your livestock in the field – on your horses, donkeys and camels and on your cattle, sheep and goats. But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and that of Egypt, so that no animal belonging to the Israelites will die.”’

The Lord set a time and said, ‘Tomorrow the Lord will do this in the land.’ And the next day the Lord did it: all the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one animal belonging to the Israelites died. Pharaoh investigated and found that not even one of the animals of the Israelites had died. Yet his heart was unyielding and he would not let the people go.

Thoughts: Here is just one of the many plague’s that were sent on Egypt by God in order to free his people from slavery. Now at the time of these plagues there were many Gods that were worshipped within the Egyptian culture, there was;

• Hapi, nile god credited for making the land fertile
• Hekt, the frog goddess, the god of creation
• Geb able to make things from the dust of the ground
• Hathor, cow headed goddess, linked to love and romance etc

However the plagues were much more than to just convince Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. It was also a way to demonstrate the superiority of God over the Egyptian gods, that God was the one true God worth worshipping. God showed power over each one, such as livestock as we read here, as well his dominion healing, creation and other areas of life that the Egyptian gods represented.

The Egyptians reigned 1000s of years ago and so the talk of Idols and other God’s in today’s culture might seem a little strange or just completely ridiculous. Yet when you look closer at our modern world still today there are many other things that we turn to in our culture above God. Whether that’s approval, money and wealth, comfort, relationships or even technology like our smartphones.

Pre X-Factor there was even a show called Pop Idol which may show my age but demonstrates how we can position those in our society with particular gifts. You just have to look at how many followers some of our most prized celebrities have on social media. Whether that’s Ronaldo with 400 million or Kylie Jenner with 300 million followers.

Tim Keller writes in his book Counterfeit Gods, an idol is “anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, and anything that you seek to give you what only God can give.”

So what might be some of our idols? For me during the pandemic it was video games - now I love video games, whether it’s FIFA or Fortnite and everything in between. However I was finding myself playing more and more that it became a coping mechanism, something I turned to when I felt anxious or low, something to make me feel better. Now I’m not saying that video games are inherently bad, far from but what it meant was I was spending less time with God and believing more that video games was what I needed to get by.

In scripture it says “those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them.” As his children the invitation for us to turn back to God is always available. But what do we receive by doing that? A love from God that will sustain and nourish us, something that no idol can do.

Prayer: Thank you God for your love, we thank you that you never look down on us in disappointment or anger when we make mistakes. Thank you the invitation to love you is always there and that your love for us never fails. We chose to put you first today and everyday, even when we have to make that decision again and again and again. Amen.

Silence: There's now just a few moments of silence for you to pray, reflect on these ideas, or simply sit and be still.

Challenge: Get a pen and a paper and after a time of stillness and prayer ask God what you may be putting before him. Write them down, it could be one, it could be a few. Now let God’s grace meet you as you say sorry for where you may have looked elsewhere for comfort and reorientate yourself to him.

Outro: That's it for today's Orbit. Thanks so much for joining us - we'll be back with another reflection tomorrow.