Verse
Aaron answered them, "Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me." Exodus 32:2 NIV
Thought
What we do with what we have is more important than what we desire to have. And what these people did with their gold earrings is incredible. The fact that they had gold earrings was actually incredible. They had been slaves in Egypt and they were now traveling in the wilderness. But despite their backgrounds and their current conditions, they had gold and other precious items.
What they did with their gold was completely uninspiring to say the least. They had become frustrated with their leader's (Moses) prolonged absence. So their assistant leader, Aaron, sought to appease them by consenting to make an idol that they could worship. He instructed them to bring their gold earrings to him and he melted them and shaped them into the form of a calf. Not only did they worship the idol, but they credited the idol with having brought them out of their Egyptian bondage.
Before we decide how much more of anything that we need, we should examine what we are doing with what we have. We may not all have gold earrings, but everyone has something - everyone spends money on some item - we all participate in the economy in some way. Do we use the money that we have to support ourselves wisely or support important work? Or do we use money for wasteful purposes that have no redemptive value at all? It was bad that the people forsook the God who really brought them out of slavery and bowed down to a false god. It was worse that they paid for the creation of that god with their own gold.
Let us not invest in foolishness with the little that we have.
Prayer
"God, I pray that I will always use what I have wisely and honor you with it. Amen"
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