Idols

The past few months, God has been speaking to my heart about idols. I'm so excited about the truths He's been revealing to me that I just have to share them.

My good friend Brette came back from a 4 month mission trip to Bali last week. Bali is consumed by worshiping idols and sacrificing to false gods. Looking at pictures of the offerings and hearing stories about the evil that happens in that country is heartbreaking. Please keep Bali in your prayers and pray for God to deliver these people from their darkness. But also, pray that you would recognize idols in our own country and in your own life that may look different, but are just as heartbreaking...

An obvious idol for me, and for many girls, is the god of relationships. It is socially good and acceptable to always have a boyfriend and to be actively pursuing marriage. Dating and marriage are not evil, but like so many earthly things, they become evil when we long for them more than we long for our Heavenly Father. When we begin to love relationships first, when we love the person we are with more, we commit adultery against our First Love. Adultery is a strong word, but it's that serious. Once I had repented of this idol in my life, I thought I was in the clear, good to go...I mean, I don't literally worship other statues of gods like they do in the Bible, so all those verses about not worshiping other gods must not apply to ME, right? Wrong! As soon as I laid down my dating relationships to God, He opened my eyes to show me that I was still worshiping so many other idols!! And most of them involved worshiping another person - what they thought of me, how I tried to impress them, what I did to please them or make them like me, how I tried to make them fill me, love me, or make me feel complete... And still, there were MORE idols...entertainment, food, family, money, school, dependency on other people...the list goes on.

"But my people have exchanged their Glory for worthless idols. Be APPALLED at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror!" ~Jeremiah 2:12

While sharing this overwhelming list with a friend of mine, she pointed me to Exodus 32, the story of the golden calf. Read this story, and ask yourself, why would they choose to worship a calf? A lion or something big, powerful and majestic makes more sense...but a cow?? All throughout the Old Testament, people worship ridiculous, meaningless animals. My friend pointed out that God let them worship these silly animals to show the magnitude of how dumb their worship of other gods truly was. Exodus 32:8 says,

"They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and have sacrificed to it."

Now, while you're thinking about how dumb these people in the Old Testament look bringing sacrifices to a cow, replace that cow with YOUR idols. Picture yourself bringing sacrifices to an ungodly relationship. Watch yourself worship what people think of you. How dumb do you look as well? This illustration totally changed my perspective and helped me to see the fullness of how disgusting my worship of my gods are when I could be worshiping and sacrificing to the King of Kings, the only worthy God.

Philippians 3:19 says "Their god is their stomach..." I love that Paul uses the word stomach here, because stomachs have to be filled. And once filled, they quickly become empty and in need of being filled again. The process is an endless one of continually trying to fill a hunger that will never go away. In my favorite parable of the women at the well, Jesus says in John 4:13-14,

"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

When I think about my constant need to be filled with love, my desire to be liked by everyone, my yearning for someone to delight in me, I can't help but cringe at remembering how I've tried to seek these needs from another human or an earthly object. I'm embarrassed by the adultery I've committed with this world against my Lord. And I'm overwhelmed that He still takes me back each time I cheat on Him, forgives me, loves me, uses my mistakes for good, and truly fills and satisfies all the desires I try so hard to make other gods fill.

Jeremiah 2:28 asks,

"Where then are the gods you made for yourselves? Let them come if they can save you when you are in trouble!"

When I read scripture about "lower case gods", I immediately try to picture my gods and ask my God to destroy anything coming between my worship of Him. I've trusted gods to come and save me when I needed help, and I have consistently been let down. As I trust my God to save me when I am in trouble, I am consistently NEVER let down.

"If I put my trust in human beings first, I will end in despairing of everyone; I will become bitter, because I have insisted on man being what no man ever can be--absolutely right. Never trust anything but the grace of God in yourself or in anyone else." ~Oswald Chambers