worms

Sometimes I wonder how long God will put up with evil people. Other times, like today, I’m grateful for his patience.

I feel that way because of an episode I read of in Acts 12:21-23 “On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. They shouted, ‘This is the voice of a god, not of a man.’ Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.”

That’s what it looks like when God has finally had enough! No matter how much some people frustrate me, I’d rather they had time to repent instead of consigning them to death by worms.

I wonder why this was finally enough. After all, Herod had been around for a while and had done plenty of offensive, even blasphemous things. Was it that the people gave him the status of a god? Was it that Herod accepted this praise? The reason we’re given is that Herod did not give praise to God, but he never did. Why now?

I’m not sure, but I’d like to know. You see, like people everywhere, I’d like to know where the boundary is. I want to have a good idea where exactly that line of worm-eating death is, because obviously that’s a fate I want to avoid. The problem with that is, I shouldn’t be anywhere near the line so why should I care? I mean, the expectation is that I should praise God, so why should I ever get into trouble over that?

Because sometimes I don’t. There are whole days I don’t praise God, and I suspect sometimes even weeks. Oh, I read the Bible and I pray, but it’s easy for those things to become chores, or to focus on all the things I want God to fix in life. So I kind of wonder exactly what it was about this example of not-praising that cause God’s angel finally to smite him.

It doesn’t matter. The lessons are obvious. God is worthy of our praise and he expects it. God is jealous of our praise and won’t allow imposters to usurp it. God is patient and allows me plenty of time for repentance. But God won’t abide my foolishness forever.

These are good things to be reminded of. My prayer this morning is that I never become so complacent because of God’s patience that I forget either to praise or repent.