Have you ever thought about the children of Israel from the Old Testament? When I first started learning about them when I was younger, I always wondered why they never seemed to learn. The pattern seemed fairly obvious, whenever they followed God’s direction, His blessings would come, and when they stopped following Him, they suffered the consequences. Now to the elementary school kid that I was, it seemed self explanatory and simple. I could not understandwht they didn’t learn from their mistakes. But the truth is that I live much the same way. My mistakes of lust, pride, and self-righteousness (just to name a few) keep coming back. I continue to walk away even when I know the consequences. Why am I more like Israel than the often referenced Apostle Paul who we seem to preach on so frequently?