Are you superstitious?

I have spent the last four months studying 1 and 2 Samuel and can't wait to share with you all that God has been teaching me (some good, some of it painful, some of it convicting...welcome to the party). You got a taste of it in the last post about Samuel and discipline...and this week will be about the Israelites and superstition. We live in a world that is extremely superstitious...heck, I am writing this post 2 days before the holiday that is about black cats, the day of the dead, and if kids don't share their candy something bad will happen to them (oh...is that just in our house?). The world of athletics has superstition draped all over it. You have the baseball player that takes 15 minutes between each swing because he has to go through his entire ritual. You have the football player that hasn't washed his socks the entire season because they are good luck (say extra prayers for that momma). You have the softball players that have to say the exact cheers at the exact time every single game. Right now the world series looks like it is made up of the entire cast of Duck Dynasty because the Red Sox players won't shave their face until after season. The world of sports does some crazy things in hopes that doing that one thing will help them win. Sound strange? What is stranger is we treat God as that pair of socks we don't wash so we can win or that rabbit foot we carry for that little extra luck. The Israelites did it then, and we still do it now. We see in 1 Samuel 4 that God's people (the Israelites) were at war with the Philistines. The Philistines had attacked the Israelites and won (vs. 2) and the Israelites started questioning why they had lost... "Why did the Lord allow us to be defeated by the Philistines?" Then they said, "Let's bring the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from Shiloh. If we carry it into battle with us, it will save us from our enemies." (vs. 3) They needed a win...they needed something good to happen to them so why not take God with them into battle this time. Yes! That will do it...if they do something for God he has to do something for them. Does this sound familiar? It should, we still do it all the time. We think if we do all the right things, all the time...nothing bad should happen. We keep track of how much we go to church, read the bible, do good things, all in hopes that God is keeping track to. All because one day you might need something and God will step in because we have done so much for him. Or maybe we don't spend one minute of the day with him and then something bad happens and then we think.."I am losing, I better start talking to him again." The crazy thing if I were to ask you, "Do you talk to God more during good times or bad?" I would guess your answer would be during bad times....and yet we asked God why bad things happen to us. Ummm... (I know! That one hit me hard) We are doing the same thing as the Israelites...we want something from God when we should just want God....Not what He can do for us but in us. We do those things to get closer to God not get something from God. Its not just what we do, but the heart behind why we do it. When we treat God as our Santa Clause to give us what we want or a rabbits foot to give us a little luck we will lose just like the Israelites. Yep...they lost the battle and the Ark of the Covenant. God is not something we need some times, He is a God that we need all the time! But when we honor and respect God as our Father, Jesus as our Savior, and the Holy Spirit is our leader we can't help but win...all the time. That's right win...all the time. This doesn't mean bad things wont happen or times will never be hard. It means we can still have joy during struggles because we have God. It means will can still have peace during the pain because we have God. It means we can still of hope in tough situations because we have God. There is hope in Jesus...not luck. There is peace in Jesus...not luck. There is strength in Jesus...not luck. I will take Jesus over luck any day...all day!