In the 1960s there was a TV program which began each episode with the phrase, “To boldly go where no man has gone before.” One might think that this would be something desirable to avoid but it became the iconic quest of the Star Trek generation. Embracing the unknown is the gest of science fiction but in life before God, this is not so desired.
‘I will not serve’ is not a healthy response to the Lᴏʀᴅ—a life lived as an affront, in-your-face before God does not end well. We humans seem to feel that as long as we can have it our way for a time, we should live it up, give way to our desires and impulses, grab all the gusto we can as in the words,
Self-satisfaction does have a certain sense of fulfillment, completion, achievement that gives that feeling of having attained our desires. Yet today’s passage warns that what we accomplish apart from God does not end without consequence:
It is not that God doesn’t want us to be fulfilled, accomplished or successful but that will not have the result we need for the long run. Leaving Him out or limiting His participation doesn’t bode well:
God has made the way back into relationship with Him and yet too many of us want to create our own freedom away from Him. He sets us free and we demand to serve ourselves. As Jesus taught in the Parable of the Rich Man who thought he had enough on his own terms, by his own provision:
Do you really want to go where no man should go, going without God in living the ‘I will not’ and live out your life ‘seeing it is evil and bitter forsaking the Lᴏʀᴅ’ or would you choose to be rich in God, with God, and have what He has prepared for you?