“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
- Exodus 20:3
If God were any less than All, this might be a problem. If there were God, and then some other things, not necessarily God but possibly good, the command would be asking us to choose. Asking us to give up some good things for what we might presume to be better things. Asking us, perhaps, to gamble, not knowing for sure if what we are giving up is worth what we’re giving it up for.
But if God is All, and God is good, then anywhere anything good is, it’s of God. There is no good anywhere that isn’t a result of God’s presence. In other words, and very basically, good is good. There is no bad good, no evil or forbidden good.
When God says, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” it is a statement of utmost tenderness and conscientious care for us. It means, don’t go buying into the lie that there is ever a price in evil to pay for good - that in order to have good, you must suffer, or you must hurt someone, or you must sacrifice something that you love. Don’t believe that it is part of life to be sick, disappointed, miserable. False gods require human sacrifice. God is Love. Love always delivers good and not suffering.
So what of all the suffering in the world? It is from the tyranny of false gods. You can tell they are false because they speak with contempt in their voices. Moses told the Children of Israel to choose: “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.” He exhorted them to choose to know they were under the control of the God who is good, and that they never should settle for any other cause to control them.
Every one of us has the right to obey the first commandment, to have good be the only thing in our lives. The snapping jaws will respond with scorn that there is no way we can have that, that we have no right to ask for it, that we can’t have it because other people don’t have it. But the all-loving God is everpresent, and tells us that we, along with everyone else, can have all good.
