A famous singer from the 60's, Frank Sinatra, recorded a song in 1970 that is regarded by many as one of his finest. The song? "My Way." It tells of a man who has reached the end of his life and has virtually no regrets because he can proudly declare that he lived life his way.
In today's scripture, Judges 17 and 18, a man named Micah did things his way. In fact, all of Israel was doing it their way, as we read in chapter 17 verse 6:
In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.
Micah had stolen a fortune from his mother, changed his mind about keeping it, confessed, and was blessed by his mother for admitting the theft. She then told him to take part of the silver and have images and an idol made so they could have household gods to worship. To make things even more religiously authentic, Micah hired a wayward Levite to be his shrine priest.
As these two chapters unfold, we see the sad shape that Israel was in and the ultimate irony of Micah's foolishness when he had to attempt to rescue his own gods.
The God who loves us doesn't rely on us to rescue him, but we can count on him to rescue us from ourselves and from our sin. Everyone worships The One True God or a god of our own making, which as it turns out, is usually the equivalent of worshipping ourselves.
When individuals do what is right in their own eyes, the results are chaos and calamity, disorder and disaster...and yet we would so ignorantly boast and brag as if "doing it our way" is something to be proud of. My prayer, my hope is that the song of my life will instead be, "I Did It His Way," and that it will be the song of yours, too.
Father, I know that you are grieved when nations, people, or individuals worship images or idols. I thank you that you are a rescuing God who offers personal relationships rather than religious rituals, and that you have no equal. Help me and those I love to live our lives your way. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
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