Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.
John finishes his epistle with the words, “Dear children, keep yourself from idols” (1 John 5:21).
Is this for me? Do I have idols?
Idols represent unseen forces. Through them you communicate with spiritual powers, asking them to manage your life and circumstances. Fertility gods ensure abundant crops and lots of children. The god Jupiter was responsible for Roman life and culture and success in war. The god Minerva oversaw domestic households and craftspeople like stonemasons and carpenters.
What about my idols in the year 2023, the things I rely on to manage my life? The federal government provides my retirement pension. Alberta provides health care. I bow to the great Internet goddess that provides news and entertainment. My credit card prays to Amazon, the god of things, who sends messengers to my doorstep. What more do I need for a successful life?
Timothy Keller’s book Counterfeit Gods: the Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power says:
“An idol is anything we cannot live without. We must have it. It drives us to break once-honored rules, to harm others and ourselves to get it. Idols are spiritual addictions . . .”
Am I addicted to the stock market? To the internet? To the power and privilege of my rich western identity? Are these my idols?
The problem of idols would be much easier if I relied on wood-and-silver images. Instead, I must make an imaginative leap to identify untruthful thoughts and beliefs that guide my life.
Wood-and-silver idols can be thrown in the garbage. But I don’t want to solve my dependency on money by throwing hundred dollar bills in the fire. Nor do I want to solve my food addiction by fasting for 40 days.
Let’s pray.
O father, our world and culture promise satisfaction. But you challenge our motives. You critique our hearts. You call us to step away from our culture to a place where you manage our lives.
Like the children of Israel, we journey through a vast and barren land, looking for freedom from addictions that enslave us. This desert is dangerous and dry, full of alluring idols and lurking serpents. We are hungry and thirsty and lost.
O God, walk with us on this perilous road. Manage our lives, change our circumstances, lead us to food and water and shelter. And make us new people, in a new land, with new loyalties and habits and desires.
You made us in your image, O God, but we dishonor and deface that image. Forgive us, cast down our false images, restore us to your true image.
Amen.
I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.
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