No one knows better than I do how hard life can be. As most of you know, in the last couple of years my family and I have been hit with a trial that has frequent short term challenges as well as chronic, long term stresses. Finding ways to relax, to be entertained, to temporarily escape the quiet agony my family and I face every day is a challenge unto itself. I understand the attraction of drugs or alcohol, something to numb the pain for just a little while. I frequently fight the temptation to eat too much or spend too much, something to give a happy, satisfied feeling to my often weary heart. Self-pity has a special attraction because it gives a sense of importance to my sometimes depleted self-esteem.
Thinking about how I am weathering these personal challenges has me looking around at my Christian family and beyond, at how we humans choose to deal with the stresses of the occasional major life crisis as well as the everyday kind of stresses that are such a large part of modern life. Overwhelmingly, we humans choose ordinary and worldly approaches to find relief from the heartaches of life. Our collective response to stress in this life is to read the self-help book, artificially numb our pain, or escape through every mode of recreation we can imagine. Even Christians find themselves caught in this mindset. Rather than casting our cares on the One who cares for us and immersing ourselves in His way and His family, we look for the answers in self-indulgences. In doing so, we create idols in our lives that we do not recognize as such. We call them recreation, blowing off steam, passion for life, hobbies, self-improvement, even friendship. In and of themselves, these activities are not idols, but we turn them into idols by allowing them to consume portions of our lives that become off-limits to the Father. Even self-pity becomes an idol when we let it overwhelm our thoughts and crowd out acknowledging the blessings God gives us.
So, specifically, what are some of the idols we create to make this life more bearable, more enjoyable, more fun? How can we know that we have turned something into an idol in our lives? Once we recognize an idol in our lives, how do we overcome it and put it back into its proper place?
I look forward to reading your thoughts and the Scriptures you point us to!
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Darby you ask a tough question because it's such a personal question. It makes us look inside and look at our days, our weeks, our very minutes.
ReplyDeleteAnything can be an idol can't it. You mentioned several of them. Shopping, eating, hobbies, interest are all great examples of modern day idols. So to is Face Book, Twitter, 4Square, and blogs that we all love. An idol can also be "Going to worship". What makes these things Idols is the attitude we have towards these things. Are we on Face book on Sunday morning instead of being at worship? Are we hiking a new trail instead of worship? Are we sitting in worship because we hope someone will comment on the new outfit we are wearing? All of these are very personal questions with very personal answers.
So here is my personal answer. I enjoy FB and looking into the lives of others. Some members in our families can hike tall mountains and seeing first hand the beauty at the top that I can not see. They take photos and post them for me to see. I thank God for that. I can see the beauty through their eyes. I once knew a man who climbed ice walls! I have no idea why he did that, but I was happy when he was so excited about going over the weekend to climb some ice wall. There are others that sew beautiful quilts and post photos of there talent - I love seeing what others can create with small patches of material. I love seeing stories about good marriages and seeing blessing of others. It reminds me that God is still in Controll and so when I am down, I can see that I am not forgotten. I am encouraged by all of the stories I see there. We have a baker that admits when his bread is not his best and I smile because he is so willing to show how human he his. What joy I feel with that.
So how do I know that FB has become an idol? For me I use 1 Peter 4:8 - 11 as my guide. What is my attitude? Am I using my gifts to Gods glory or as an excuse. Am I checking on those I care for, or sharing my joy, or bragging. Do I think out loud on these social mediums, or toot my own horn? What is the attitude and reason for this. We each have a story. We each have a problem. I am reminded daily that I am human. I thank God for each new day to start over. I am blessed to have His grace cover me when I fall. When I go to bed at night, I pray that I put in a good day, did my job, helped someone, made a difference someplace. Then when I take hold of a blessing (a bit of personal shopping, a long walk, a new piece of jewelry or company that came by) I can enjoy that blessing, share that blessing and hope that the people who care about me, enjoy it with me. Their response is their story. So for me prayer is how I deal with those "things" that become idols. I ask God daily to show me where I'm going wrong, and to "be still and know that He is God".