These past few weeks, I've been reading a lot in the book of Judges.  There's some pretty crazy stuff in there, but I think there are some really good lessons that I've taken from it.  Judges is all about the cycle of Israel forgetting the Lord, worshipping other gods, getting into bad situations, then coming back to God.  Israel seems to do this a lot.  As I've been reading it, the people of Israel seem so childish, so open to completely turning their backs on the God who has sustained them through so many rough times. 

 It hit me the other day though, that I am exactly the same way a lot of the time.  Whenever times are good, my finances are all taken care of, the weather is nice, etc., I tend to forget that it's God who has given me every good thing that I have.  Not that I forget God completely and start worshipping golden idols like the Israelites, but I just kind of get into cruise control mode.  

My friend Kat said the other day that sometimes the Lord allows us to not have everything we want because he knows that we would forget him.  That God wants to be in relationship with us, and you can't have a good relationship with someone you always forget.  That is absolutely true and I pray that I, as well as the church and our nation, can learn form the Israelites and remember God; not only in times of crisis (recession, anyone?), but also when everything is good and we're living off the fat of the land.