In 1 Samuel 4, Israel goes out to fight against the Philistines. It doesn’t go well. 4,000 Israelite soldiers are killed. When the survivors get back to camp, the elders ask, “Why did Jehovah bring defeat upon us today before the Philistines?”

I think it’s significant they didn’t ask Jehovah. They only asked each other. I would imagine a lively debate ensued, until someone said, “Let us bring the ark of Jehovah’s convenant from Shiloh, so that it may go with us and save us from the hand of our enemies.”

I’m sure it sounded like a great idea. It made sense. Everyone agreed. Surely all they needed was the ark to go before them and they would defeat the Philistines.

So the ark is brought from Shiloh and the Israelites again go into battle against the Philistines. The result is even worse this time. “The slaughter was very great; Israel lost 30,000 foot soldiers.” It gets worse–the ark was also captured by the Philistines. Also, Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phineas are killed. Thirty years earlier, God had told Eli that because of the wickedness of his two sons, they would both die on the same day. When Eli hears his sons are dead and the ark has been captured, it kills him. Literally.

When the wife of Phineas hears her husband is dead and the ark has been lost, she goes into labor and gives birth to a son. Before she dies as a result of the labor, she names him Ichabod, which means “no glory.”

How did it come to this? 310 years earlier, Joshua led Israel across the Jordan River into the land God had promised to their father, Abraham. They won many great military victories as Jehovah, their God, fought for them. So how did things get so bad?

In Deuteronomy 8, God spoke to the Israelites through Moses and warned them not to forget Him. He said, “If you ever forget Jehovah your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. Like the nations Jehovah destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying Jehovah your God.”

Israel forgot God. They forgot His word. They forgot to obey Him. Instead, they bowed down to other gods and served them. It wasn’t the ark that gave them victory, it was Jehovah.

How often do we forget God? How often do we strategize and plan, but fail to inquire of Him? The elders asked each other why they’d been defeated, but they didn’t ask their God. So they relied on their own wisdom, their own great idea to be successful. Sometimes I think the enemy of God’s best is our great idea.

When we forget God and pursue what we think is best, relying on our common sense–the result is never good. We either fail or simply miss out on God’s best and may never even realize it.