1 SAMUEL 6

Well, just when you thought nobody was paying attention to God... along comes 1 Samuel 6. Up to this point, God has had more failure with Israel than success (or so it seems). Here and there, He has a person who appears willing to listen, but those people are few and far between. It could almost make you think that God isn’t very good at getting His point across.

But then we come to verse 6: "Why do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh did? When Israel’s god dealt harshly with them, did they not send the Israelites out so they could go on their way?" These were the Philistine priests talking to the Philistines about sending back the Ark of the Covenant to the Israelites. And one thing’s for sure: Israel might have quickly forgotten what God did in Egypt, but the Philistines hadn’t. They got the message, and they were still talking about it decades later!

To me, this proves that God is an effective communicator—regardless of whether we choose to listen to His message or not. We may be stubborn and unwilling to yield to Him, but that doesn’t mean He has failed to get His point across. Whatever we need to know, God is more than capable of communicating it to us!