Being sensitive to God

“The Philistines asked, ‘What guilt offering should we send to Him?’ They replied, ‘Five gold tumours and five gold rats, according to the number of the Philistine rulers, because the same plague has struck both you and your rulers.’” 1 Samuel 6:4
In 1 Sam. 5-6 we read of how the Philistines captured the ark of the covenant during one of their battles with Israel. When they took it into the temple of their god Dagon, a series of bizarre events occurred. The statue of Dagon fell over and broke. Then in every city the ark was taken to, there was a plague of rats and the people were afflicted with tumours. It didn’t take them long to realise that the ark of the covenant wasn’t just a gold-plated box. So to relieve their suffering, they decided to send it back to Israel. But they did not simply send the ark back; they also sent a guilt offering.
Contrast this attitude with that of the Israelites: they used the ark of the covenant in the first place as a kind of lucky charm, thinking that its being there would aid them in their battle. It would seem that they weren’t really trusting in the Lord for victory, or else He would have given it to them – with or without the ark of the covenant being taken to the front lines.
All in all, the Philistins were more sensitive to God than the Israelites were at this point in their history. What a tragic thing it is, when God’s people fail to hear what He is even revealing to those who do not belong to Him. Can we see God’s hand at work in our lives, or do our non-Christian friends point it out to us?