In the fall of 1997, I arrived at Gordon College. Nestled 45 minutes northeast of Boston, Gordon’s beautiful campus sits in the heart of New England. This southwest kid was about to get the full New England experience. And you can’t have a New England experience without experiencing her fans.
Just three years later, the newly minted coach of the Patriots, Bill Belichick, would draft Tom Brady with the 199th draft pick of the 2000 NFL draft. At that point, the Patriots had logged a sad 68-92 record in the 1990s. The Red Sox hadn’t fared much better. They made the playoffs three times in that decade, but came away with nothing to show for it, unless you count their 13-game postseason losing streak. New England loved her sports, but she might have loved complaining about her sports even more. Any trip on the T (Boston’s public transit) practically guaranteed two guys grousing about the lousy Pats or Sox (in the appropriately thick Boston accent) and, of course, dogging the hated Yankees.
I finished my undergraduate degree in December 2000. Over the next two decades, the Patriots assembled the most dominant dynasty in NFL history, winning six Super Bowls, while the Red Sox collected four World Series titles of their own.
So how did winning affect New England’s chronically grousing fan base? Instead of humbly and joyfully celebrating their newfound success, many fans turned into the very thing they hated: Yankees fans. Arrogant and entitled.
What do you cry out to God about? Perhaps it’s your health. A relationship. Your finances. Or perhaps your job.
How would your relationship with God change if you received exactly what you’ve been praying for? Many of us imagine we would become joyful and grateful, with our hearts drawn even nearer to God. I hope that would be true. Unfortunately, it rarely seems to work that way. How often, when met with blessing, do we become what we hate?
After God rescued Jacob’s family, positioning Joseph in Egypt through great pain and suffering, the family prospered and multiplied. The book of Exodus tells us:
8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. 10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” 11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. 13 So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves 14 and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves. (Ex. 1:8-14)
Because Israel prospered, they became a threat in Pharaoh’s eyes. And Pharaoh used his power wickedly, enslaving the Israelites. Generations passed. The people cried out to God - and God heard their cries. He told Moses, “Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey” (Ex. 3:7-8).
God rescued his people and brought them to the “land flowing with milk and honey.” Knowing the fickleness of their hearts, God commanded the Israelites to drive out the inhabitants of the land. They drove out some of the inhabitants, but not all. Once Israel gained power, the temptation to wield it like Pharaoh had was too strong.
When Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not drive them out completely. (Jdgs 1:28)
…so the Canaanites lived among them, but became subject to forced labor. (Jdgs. 1:30)
Nevertheless, the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh and of Beth-anath became subject to forced labor for them. (Jdgs 1:33)
…but the hand of the house of Joseph rested heavily on them, and they became subject to forced labor. (Jdgs 1:35)
The lies of the serpent echo in their disobedience, “Did God actually say?” (Gen. 3:1). The rationale would have been easy: Why drive out those we conquer when we can benefit from their labor? Isn’t it even compassionate to let them remain? And won’t the land flow with even more milk and honey if they help us cultivate it?
But God was not deceived. Israel had become who they once suffered under. Just as the New Englanders had become the Yankees, they had become Egypt. Cries for deliverance were replaced by arrogant statements of entitlement. Desperate hearts became hard hearts. It is frighteningly easy to become what we hate.
Cry out to God in your time of need, but don’t stop crying out for your heart. When you are healed, when peace is made in the relationship, when lack is supplied, when work becomes joyful: be wary. Blessing can quickly tempt us toward the very sins we once condemned. Pray not only for God’s provision, but for the humility to remain faithful when the provision comes.
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