I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath. Hosea 13:11, KJV

When I was a boy, there came a day when I decided that I loved ham. I loved it so much that I asked my mother to cook ham for supper every night for the rest of my life. She obliged, and after about a week’s worth of ham suppers, I had had enough. After that week, ham no longer held any appeal for me, and I didn’t touch ham again for twenty years!

God’s way is always better than our way. We are usually too dense to see this, mainly because we are more in love with ourselves than with our Creator. When we love ourselves first and God second, it is natural for us to long after our ways rather that His ways. We beg God to let us have our way, and God sometimes gives us what we want to show us our folly. Our way is destructive, and God’s cure for our ignorance may be to allow us to feast on our lusts until we become as sick of ourselves as I was sick of that ham!

In Hosea 14:8, Ephraim became so weary of the consequences of idol worship that they forsook their idols in favor of the God they never should have left. If we are not careful, God will use the same approach with us until we learn the same lesson – God’s way is better than ours.

What idols are distracting you? Cast them aside now before God allows you to feast on the personal destruction that your idol worship will inevitably bring!