I’ve found myself thinking about the sin of idol worship lately. I just finished Exodus and started Leviticus, lot’s in there. Plus, when I was visiting Sherann I read a little bit of a book she got when she went to see the Purple Pig Tour called, The Purple Pig and Other Miracles (I was scanning to try and find out where the name came from, but I didn’t get that far), and I happened to read a section where Dick Eastman was talking about an experience he had at a college event that touched on idolatry. When stuff starts popping up over and over again, I don’t take that as a coincidence, but rather as instructions to pay attention.
So I started thinking more about it and praying about it. Idols aren’t something that we often think about today, or at least that we don’t often think about in a negative way. In fact, for years people would throw around the phrase “he/she is my idol” quite freely about celebrities all the time. Today, we even have the ump-teenth season of American Idol, passing off the idea that idolization is no big deal. It’s still not something that we take very seriously. But we should.
Idolatry is anything or anyone that draws our attention, time, worship, and praise away from God where it rightfully belongs. An idol is not simply a carved, man-made god. It can be a celebrity or sports star or any person. It can be television, video games, or any stuff. It can be an idea or ideal even. It can even be things within the Church, itself, that we have placed too high and too holy for our own good. If we obsess over it, if we feel like we can’t live without it then it’s very likely something that we have idolized. I'm convinced that at least part of the reason that God commanded the Israelites not to make any graven images is because then they would have slowly begun to worship those things instead of Him. We often face that same danger today.
A few years ago we had fires that raged throughout Southern California. We were about a mile away from one of those fires. I’ve lived in SoCal all my life, and I’m not saying that earthquakes don’t scare me, but I have never experienced fear quite like that before. Sadly, what I was really afraid of was not losing my life, but losing my stuff. In an earthquake, even if the house collapsed, most of my stuff would be fine; it might get dirty, it might take some time to get to, but not destroyed. But a fire! A fire consumes everything. And I was afraid. And when I realized all of that, I felt sick to my stomach.
I think that it’s okay to like our stuff. It’s okay to watch television or play video games. But we need to have a proper attitude about/perspective on things. If I was going to spend more time worrying about my stuff than worrying about and praying for the people who were losing their homes then my heart was not in the right place and I did not have proper perspective.
We need to recognize what we have begun to idolize in our lives and begin to fix the problem. It may take time. There may be relapses. Prayer helps.
I’ve been doing this in my life and I’ve been asking God to reveal the things that I have idolized without yet realizing it so that I can remove those things. This doesn’t mean that I got rid of my TV. It does mean that I have been watching much much less. It doesn’t mean that I got rid of my stuff. It does mean that I have shared my desire with family and friends to begin paring down my unnecessary belongings. It’s a small step. But it’s a step.
I want to give God all of the glory. I want to give Him all my praise. He deserves nothing less. It gets easier as I focus more of my time and attention on Him. I still have bad days. When I realize it, those are the days that I pray a little more. He is helping me along the way, because I can't do it without Him.
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