I have a little rhyme I used to say to my children when they were young:
“Two plus two equals four—
seldom less, sometimes more.”
But here is a situation where addition doesn’t work: You can’t add to God and get more. You only get less.
When we add our efforts to God’s, we don’t end up ahead, we end up behind. God quietly steps out of the way until our own efforts run their doomed course.
A good example of this is found in Genesis 31. Just before running away with her husband, Rachel, the wife of Jacob, stole her father’s household gods while her dad was out working on his ranch. (verse 19)
Sometimes you just wonder. What was Rachel thinking? I guess she thought she needed all the luck she could get. When Abraham stepped out into the unknown, God stepped out with him. He wanted to do the same for Rachel, and He wants to do the same for us. Whatever “rabbit’s foot” we bring along for extra security only puts a hole in our defenses.
The Bible doesn’t say, but it may be that Rachel clung to these gods for another ten to fifteen years until something happened that threatened to wipe out Jacob’s entire family. (See Genesis 34-35.) There, with danger all around, she may have finally learned that security only comes from the one true God.
Dwight
