July 14

Idols are interesting aren’t they? We have read about idols for months now and I still don’t get how you can bow down to some object and worship it. Society at that time was one of idols, which we in the states don’t have. You don’t have different idols everywhere and people worshipping them and asking for their help. As I was reading today I was struck by the description of idols. They are things that their hands made. Whether they made them themselves or paid someone else to make them, they were made by their hands.

This brought a revelation that I feel like I should have received years ago. Maybe I had it mostly right, but I couldn’t articulate it like this. An idol for me is anything that my hand can make, (or someone else’s hand can make) and further, something that can be looked to that has been made by my own strength. So if I can do it, or I can make it, or someone else can make it, it can be an idol. The ingredient that turns a statue into an idol or my own ability to provide for my family into an idol is trust. Trust or faith changes things. Even if it is just the beginning of faith, which could be hope, or before that, desire, anything that I look to besides God is death! (Like looking to the lottery to help us?!) Jesus rebuke me for my idols and I will forsake them. Show them to me and I will crush them.