A Stiff-Necked People

Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. (Deuteronomy 10:16 NIV)

My devotion yesterday talked about a Bible study I am doing at church on Wednesday nights.  I am also doing another study with my reunion group on the book of Ruth using a book by Liz Curtis Higgs call, This Girl's Still Got It.

This morning we talked about the daughter-in-law that did not stay with Naomi, Orpah.  She is known in Bible study circles as "the stiff-necked one."  Throughout the Old Testament, it seems that God is always telling his children that they are a "stiff-necked" people.  I always took it to mean "stubborn."  But a question in our Bible study made us look at the word a little more literally.  Why "stiff-necked?"

Think about what happens when you wake up in the morning with a stiff neck.  You pretty much want to keep your head looking straight ahead.  You don't want to turn, or look over your shoulder.  It hurts!  Orpah is the stiff necked one because once she decided to leave, she didn't look back.  (Maybe the image of the women she loved but had to leave would hurt.)

We are still often God's stiff-necked children today.  We get going in one direction... so often the wrong one... and we don't look back.  We don't want to feel the hurt of what we are leaving behind.  We may even hear God call us to "come back,"  "return."  And yet we keep our faces looking straight ahead as we continue down the road to false gods with false promises.

We all have those false gods we run toward when life seems too hard... you know... those things that crowd out the one True God from our lives.  If we could just let our necks become less stiff... look back... look at the abundant life we leave behind everytime we fall for the lies of our false gods.  Look back.  Yearn.  Return.

Father,
Your call to return isn't just during Lent.  Each time we drift away, you are there calling us back.  Help us to hear you each time we think we have found an easier way.  Amen.

Joys:  Spending summertime "in the Word"; a nice newsy, chatty phone call from my newly-est wed son; Richard coming home