Whatver They Felt Like

"At that time there was no king in Israel. People did whatever they felt like doing."- Judges 21:25, The Message

I'm not up to this verse in Judges yet; probably won't be for another couple of days at least.  However, in the introduction to the book, this verse was mentioned, and throughout my reading tonight it just kept coming to mind.  In Judges, the Israelites are in the Promised Land, but they aren't living free.  Anything but... they live in cycles of oppression and victory, and the key to the victory is when they remembered Whose they were.  This made me think about the above verse. 

People did whatever they felt like doing, because there was no accountability.  No king to tell them what to do.  No big brother looking over their shoulder.  No repercussions, or at least none that they considered at the time they were doing what they felt like doing.   A live in the moment, take life by the seat of your pants type society.  Sound familiar?

We are living in a country right now where anything goes.  Literally.  Whatever you feel like doing, there must be some kind of hidden trauma or something in your past making you feel that way, and by all means you need to work through those issues, so do it.  We have noone to answer to.  Little to no repercussions.  We, in all sense of the words, "do whatever we feel like."  As that got Israel in trouble, I'm thinking we better start remembering Whose we are and start living like it...

On another note, I did read about Deborah.  Pretty cool that God used a woman as a judge all those years ago.  Women's Lib? Not revolutionary.  When asked if she was going to go along for the battle, Deborah replied,  (paraphrase) "Um, yes.  I'm going to go so that they can see God hand it to them by means of a woman."  Tell me women aren't powerful...Grin =)