By Nick Dalgety
Is God a jealous God? I will come to that puzzling question in a moment.
First, this is a photo I took a couple of days ago in my city of Nelson. As I drove back home I looked in the rear vision mirror and this is what I saw. God’s handiwork. A beautiful cloud formation hanging over our city for a brief moment in time.
I jumped out of the car to capture the moment with my mobile phone camera.
God is the Creator, and this display in the skies speaks to His wonder. The creativity of Man is also apparent in the streetscape. Buildings, both old and new, complementing the tree overhanging Hardy Street.
This leads me to want to praise God for His creation – to honor Him for what I can so easily take for granted.
Back to God being a jealous God. Got Questions does a good job of contrasting Gods jealousy with Man’s, here. In the Bible we read in the book of Exodus:
You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God [EXODUS 20:4-5]
God is jealous when someone gives to another something that rightly belongs to Him. Compare this to you and I. When we use the word jealousy, we use it in the sense of being envious of someone who has something we do not have.
So let us reject the tendency to be jealous of others and to worship those idols in our lives – rather give honor and praise to our Creator. In this instance let us look up, acknowledge the wonder this creation, and worship the One who created it!
About the Author
Nick Dalgety is a Kiwi born in Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. In recent times my wife and I have made Nelson in the top of the South Island home.
My day job involves working with people making a living from land and sea. In my spare time my passion is taking pictures that celebrate what is iconic about Aotearoa New Zealand. Inevitably this involves discovering amazing people, in their special place making and doing what they do best.
When travelling overseas, I often seek out similar experiences. I created Provenance101 to share these experiences.
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