Continuing in 1 Samuel 5, the Philistines have routed the Israelites and have the ultimate spoil from war- the Ark of the Covenant! When they return home, they place it alongside one of their other gods. They wake the next morning and see their idol tipped over. They set it up and the same thing happens the next morning. They try again. The next morning, their god has lost its arms. This is bad news. Pretty soon, the town that has the ark in it experiences disease and death. They move it to a different town. Same result. Soon, Philistine towns are begging that the Ark stay away from their town. What the Philistines thought would be the ultimate treasure is becoming a national nightmare. They make plans to send the ark back to Israel along with guilt offerings.
How did this happen? For the Philistines, they thought they could just add the Ark into their collection of gods and deities. For them, it was just one more thing to add. They had their gods, and they know had the Israelite God. But for the Israelite God, it's all or nothing. God has no time to be on the same mantle as something else. God has no interest in competing with other gods for allegiance or loyalty. And again, even if you're not a follower of God, you still can't contain God.
We do this all the time, don't we? We place God alongside our other gods- money, success, power, beauty, security, family. We have a mantle full of other gods and think that we can simply add God to our collection. We attend church on Sunday- that's our God mantle. The rest of the week we devout to our money god, or our family god, or our success god. But again, our God doesn't want to compete with the other gods. And we can't compartmentalize this God either.
It's not that family isn't important. Or that work and money are bad things. But when they take god status in our lives, God doesn't want to compete. God wants all of us.
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