{idols revisited}

"The answer came to him slowly, with the changing of the seasons.
You shall have no other Gods before me.That couldn't be right.
Michael's anger grew. 'When have I worshiped anyone but You?'
He raged again, 'I've followed you all my life. I've never put anyone before you'. Hands fisted, he wept. 'I love her, but I've never made her my god.'
In the calm that followed his angry torrent of words, Michael heard - and finally understood. 
You became hers."

"She thought she had been saved by his love for her, and in part she had been.
It had cleansed her, never casting blame. But that had been only the beginning...."
- Francine Rivers (Redeeming Love)

I have never paid much attention to the first (and second) commandments.

and not because i didn't think they were important, but because i always mentally dismissed them as 'oh... i don't need to worry about that'

'thou shalt have no other gods before me.. thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image..thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor worship them, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God...'

i have had that passage memorized since age four, and it never sunk in further than surface level.

i have sat through the same sermon on idols countless times, on how any inanimate object which we allow to usurp the place of the Lord is an idol... things such as money and power and fame and phones and sports and the first thing which we give our hearts to apart from Him is what we place above him, and i have nodded and still largely dismissed the entire concept as unrelated to me.

....'and let he who thinks he stands take heed....'

see, it hadn't quite occurred to me that good things, even good people, could be idols too. oh, not necessarily in the bow-down-and-worship sort of way (because, with India's history of idolatry, that was all too familiar, all too common to my mind), but that there is a fine line between admiration and idolatry.

there is a thin boundary between carefully taking into consideration what wise ones have to say, and substituting their counsel for God's commands.

what is an idol? an idol is .... a god. to be turned to for constant comfort before anyone else, to be talked (prayed) to. you await their responses with eager anticipation, look to them as the standard of how to live, what to pattern your life after.

the downfall comes in the fact that i had always heard idols portrayed in a negative sense. things like body image, money, boyfriends, job, power - the things we value inordinately, prize above God, search for before we search for Him

sure, i had heard marriage mentioned as an idol, the compulsory pastoral plug for all those single still searching for a spouse.

and i could see how that would be so. i could see how all those would/could easily transform into an idol under any circumstances....we live in a world obsessed with the physical and with body image.... materialism is an easy idol... i have grown up watching workaholics devote their lives to their job and i have worked to avoid becoming one.... as far as the boyfriend goes, i do not have one.... as far as marriage, i can see how the desire to find a spouse can soon become all-consuming.

but it has been a humbling to have God show me the idols in my own life, one by one... and come to the conclusion that even good things, even good people, even the best of people... can become idols.

these are the people who would be horrified if they knew that this was happening, but it is true nonetheless.

see, the definition of God is God. the demonstration of "God-like" is Christ. and no matter how godly another person may be, as soon as i have begun to set them up as the standard to achieve, then my focus shifts from the Creator the creature, my goal becomes the created not Christ, and i have an idol.

the second my perspective shifts from 'better' as defined as 'running as hard and as fast towards Him as i possibly can' to 'better' as defined as 'just like so-and-so', then i'm in trouble.

and it's totally possible to not even realize that you're doing this. i didn't realize it - haven't for months, but turns out my siblings were right after all. no one is the end-all-and-be-all but Christ. no one's vote should trump His voice.

anyone's counsel, sought before God's, is unconscious idolatry. anything or anyone which comes first in my life, anyone i depend on more than i depend on God, any place i run to before the Father's arms... is idolatry.

if Christ will have my all, then He demands nothing less than total surrender. all strongholds. all idols. all laid on his altar.

and if i think that 'better' means just like someone else, then i am missing the heart of God's best for me.

God has called me as me. He created me...me. unique.

but that is easy to forget if you are as i was.

after all, when someone enters your life as living example of the love of God, and that person is generally recognized and accepted as a wise and Godly individual with a fairly balanced perspective on theological aspects which have long confused you, and then, to top it all off, genuinely cares for you, wants you to live in freedom, and is your first indication that there may be more to life than what you know, and then on top of all that, saves your life.... the lines get a bit blurred between what is God and what is that particular person's specific take on things.

this is not isolated to one individual, though. flipping through old journals, i realize that i have this habit of equating 'what Godly looks like' with whatever person in my life seemed 'cleanest'....'purest'

whoever looked the part, and genuinely desired more of God, became the definition in my mind of what a 'Godly' man or woman was. some of these i have only watched from a distance. some i knew personally. some i was extremely close with. but the theme is the same.

David. Jonathan. Rachel (a couple of them). Mary. Lydia. Sarah (several!). Sarah Beth. Abigail. Leah. Amy (a few of these, too). Jill. Melanie.the Botkins. ... Brandt.

the kind of person i thought you had to be if you wanted someone, who was not as damaged as i already was, to love you..to want you.

and while there were those who i admired for their resilience, the kind of woman i would have wanted to be if i was not running so frantically after the fundamentalist homeschool poster child image....Piyali. Cassidy...women who embodied the kind of freedom i wished to live in, confident and secure enough in their walk with the Creator to not care what the world thought...they were so few, so lone.

but i have always lived between these two opposites:

the wounded ones who looked to me for stability and solidity and hope and a reminder to keep fighting. for these i had to be strong. i could never break, never share my own struggles. although comfortable with them, because i knew we could be real, i also felt deeply responsible for their wellbeing...for their pain.

and then the 'pure' ones, those in whose company i could never stay without a deeply ingrained sense of shame, of unworthiness, of unequality.... i have always felt out of place, as though i never belonged with the godly, all too aware of my own shortcomings and scars.

but a 'Proverbs 31 woman' is not pearls and denim and lace and Southern manners. Godly is not defined by how closely another Christ-follower and i agree on tattoos.

God has called me to himself... but He has called me as me.

me the way He created me. with curves and brown skin and an incurable romanticism.... and yes, even my love for tattoos.

what better means is following Him. what better means is seeing myself how He sees me. what better means is running as fast as i can towards His heart. what better means is hungry for more of Jesus, basking in His unfailing love. what better means is true health and wholeness - discarding the shame-chains, and walking in His new life.

what better means is stained glass. what better means is kintsugi.

what better does not mean is.. just like Brandt. or Amy. or Sarah. or Melanie. or anyone else who i know or have admired from a distance as the epitome of perfection..or wondered if, maybe, if i was just like 'her', then those whom i wanted so badly to impress, to prove to them that i was more than the sum of my damaged parts, that i was worth the time invested, would look at me with the same eyes of appreciation.

but we are all human, and all sinful, and thus must all equally fall short of a perfect God's immutable standard, and my standard must be Christ.

my standard for how closely i am walking with the Lord must be His Spirit's leading, must be my conscience's directive, must be His Word, must be the confirmation of other Christians....

but to substitute their counsel for the confirmation of the Spirit, to place a higher emphasis on their opinion than on the approval or disapproval of Christ?

idolatry... no matter how godly of a person, no matter how good of an influence.... is still idolatry.

the definition of Godly, of best...is Christ.

other Christians? their walk is different from mine. their lives are different. God is leading them and growing them (as He is me) in different directions, and following God in practice will sometimes look very different for each of us.. and that's okay. 

to be a Christ-follower - to be a Christian - does not mean that my goal ought to be just like other Christians, but rather that my  goal ought to be Christ. my life ought to reflect Christ. my heart should be after HIM. not after how closely i resemble those who appear to be perfect, to have their life altogether, and to be right where God wants them.

because where God wants them isn't necessarily where He wants me.

and it's been a humbling realization to come to terms with, to be shown so clearly and painfully how i have substituted a certain person's opinion, their take on things, in all things, as the definitive standard on godliness.

*refer above, to this girl thinking she wasn't an idolater..or is it 'idolatress'?*

does this mean that i don't care what others think? or that now i think it is alright to disregard the strong combined counsel of other Christians?

of course not!

but i am also starting to learn to listen to the Lord for what better looks like in His will for me instead of the endless comparison and casting up idols.

and somehow, i strongly suspect that this people-pleaser will probably take a while to get the hang of this... but hey... at least i don't have to do this on my own.

i have His strength to hold onto. and Him to fix my eyes on. and that is far enough for me.