I was reading the end of Exodus the other day, chapter 40, to be exact, and I was struck by how many times it's recorded that the Israelites/Moses did everything as "the Lord commanded Moses."
There wasn't any wishy-washy, "As they thought best in terms of engineering," or "they did what was aesthetically pleasing," or anything like that, but they just did it. The Lord commanded? We're on it. Now, we know that through history, Israel didn't exactly keep that up (can you say "every man did what was right in his own eyes"? yeah, it gets a little crazy in Judges), but for this point in time, they did what they were asked.
And sure, we all think that if the Lord came directly to us and requested that we do such-and-such we'd be more than happy to do it just as He asked, but really, if we were honest with ourselves, I think it would occur to us that that's simply not the case. We do what we think is the smartest thing. "Oh, the Bible seems to indicate that we shouldn't do a certain thing? Well, they didn't really have [fill in the blank] back in the days when the Bible was written, so I think we can safely say that we can in good conscience to [fill in the blank]."
Riiiiight.
But it's all good and well talking about what "we" do or don't do, but really, what about me? Now, I'm not trying to be self-centered here, but it bears consideration that I, Little Jo Sleep, should always do exactly what the Lord commanded me.
Ouch.
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