What do you value most?
I’m not really big on fancy religious words. They’re fun to toss around, but I mostly think the words make it easy to dismiss a deeper issue.
Idolatry is a word like that. For me, the word evokes images of golden calves and ritual sacrifice. Idols are statues of snakes and demons and Greek goddesses, people dancing around them and tossing virgins into pits to appease them. That’s the kind of stuff that happens with idolatry—not much I have to worry about.
I haven’t worshipped a golden calf or sacrificed a virgin for quite some time. I don’t have to be concerned about idolatry, right?
A trick question
We’re doing a study, and the speaker sneaks in this question. “What’s the thing that, if you lost it, you might not want to go on living?”
Nobody mentioned golden calves or cars or bank accounts. Most folks listed kids and loved ones. I admitted that I seriously considered suicide following my accident; I couldn’t see how life in a paralyzed body was worth living.
Everyone in the group had something. Then the speaker dropped the bomb.
“Whatever you just listed is your idol. It’s the thing you value more than God.”
I don’t like that very much. I don’t want to acknowledge that I value my health, my ability to walk and run, more than I value God. But it’s true.
In the months following my injury I did not trust that God could work for good within the broken circumstances of my life. My sense of identity came not from my relationship with Jesus but from my physical ability. So when I lost that, I lost my reason to live.
All this isn’t to say that we shouldn’t grieve when we lose someone or something dear to us. Of course we hurt and mourn those sorts of tragedies.
But when anything aside from God becomes the source of our identity, our reason for moving forward, we’ve created an idol.
I’m afraid that, if I’m honest, my identity comes from a lot of things besides Jesus.
Idols.
What’s the thing that, if you lost it, you might not want to go on living?
 |
Want to receive free updates? Click below to get Bouncing Back delivered directly to your inbox.  |
You might also like: