idolatry.
I wonder if you remember my blog from September when I promised to do everything to the glory of God. I wrote:
I want my college experience–my going-to-class, homework-ing, studying, note-taking–to be my spiritual act of worship.
I decided that just a month into school, promising to work my hardest to make that possible. And you know what? I succeeded. I worked so hard, didn’t let myself get lazy. I was an overachiever, ambitious, a great student.
But I also worshiped my GPA.
Here’s a lesson in idolatry.
Idolatry is one of those sins that kind of sneaks up on you. It’s unintentional, that’s for sure, but it’s also incredibly stealthy. I don’t set out to commit idolatry, it just seems to happen.
This has been one of my more casual sins for some time. I get really excited about certain things – I’m passionate – but it turns deadly after quite some time. It starts to consume me. My dream to work for RELEVANT, for example, has become an idol for my a lot. I just want to work there so bad … I get so caught up with that, instead of the big picture, and instead of looking to God who will equip me for that job.
I think of Aaron and the golden calf. We learned in BIL101 that the Israelites weren’t trying to worship the calf when Aaron formed it out of gold, rather, they were trying to worship God through the golden calf. Calves were used as a pedestal for a god to sit upon, not as a god itself. The Israelites hoped to have a sort of visual aid for worshiping God, not realizing that he cannot be contained to a tiny golden altar.
How often do we do that? We see the good in our jobs or our dreams, our hardwork or successes, but instead of worshiping God for them, we worship the thing itself. We think we’re trying to worship God through the calf, but we end up falling to our knees and worshiping the thing created before us.
May 10, 2009