God may seem mean to basically coerce His people into doing things His way. He certainly knows how to make life miserable, doesn’t He? But He doesn’t use that misery to punish His people; rather, His intent is to compel them turn back to Him. His unwillingness that anyone should perish makes what appears to be meanness actually kindness.
God is good, but Satan doesn’t want us to believe that so he twists the truth and tries to deceive us into believing the lie. Many times we do believe it! God’s past dealings with His people are our reminders of the truth.
Perhaps right now God is bringing trials into your life to call you back to Him. Are you going to accept Satan’s lies and be hostile toward God for the difficulty, or are you going to turn to Him and be restored to peaceful relationship?
Of course, not every trial we suffer is because we need to be brought back to Him. He alone knows the reasons we suffer. Certainly our sufferings should always be accepted as God’s calls on our hearts to draw Him closer to Himself, whether in confession and repentance, or for strength and comfort. Let Him use your suffering for your good in greater intimacy with Him, rather than be duped by Satan!
Chapter 27 speaks mostly about redeeming – buying back – something one rashly devoted to God in religious zeal. It happens! Sometimes we allow our feelings to carry us farther than is reasonable, and we have to face that reality. Isn’t God good to understand the weaknesses of His people and provide for them?
Note that what was dedicated to God could be bought back, but what was devoted couldn’t. What was dedicated was promised to God. What was devoted to God was set aside for Him, forfeited. The sense was that the item was destroyed to its owner, a doomed object.
Think about the nature of our salvation. It is meant to be a covenant relationship between us and God: He gives us eternal life and we give Him our lives. We devote our lives to Him. Jesus used the idea of taking up a cross, which is a symbol of death. Paul used the term “living sacrifices.” We are dead to self. Is that how you see your life, or are you still living it for yourself? Do you see your covenant with God the same way He sees it?