Unearth Your Idols

Heading to Thailand in T- 2 weeks. This is what He has on my heart.

Amos 5:21-26

²¹ “I hate, I reject your festivals,
Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies.
²² “Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings.
²³ “Take away from Me the noise of your songs;
I will not even listen to the sound of your harps.
²⁴ “But let justice roll down like waters
And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

²⁵ “Did you present Me with sacrifices and grain offerings in the wilderness for forty years, O house of Israel? ²⁶ You also carried along Sikkuth your king and Kiyyun, your images, the star of your gods which you made for yourselves.

We don't have many traditional idols in America. It is becoming more prevalent as seekers turn to Eastern religions. But those of us who say we trust Jesus would feign to acknowledge we worship idols. There are no carved images of contrived deities in our homes. We do not burn incense to or pray at the altar of any other "god." But do we?

In two weeks Dusty and I (and our nine-year-old) are heading to a land fraught with literal idolatry. I'm interested to see how my spirit will respond. I am wondering who is the more deceived. They KNOW what they worship.

Oh our idols are less garish, less apparent perhaps (though not to YHWH), but they are there. As I read this passage this morning, I imagined the Israelites traveling for decades from one wilderness to the next with these heavy, gaudy images in tow all while they had the true, LIVING God in their presence. 

But how different am I? How different are we? We have buried our idols under the floorboards of our lives. We have built them into the walls of our hearts and they lie hidden, just inches under the supple, garden dirt of our souls eking their pollution into the fruit of our lives. 

Yet, their arrogance cries out to God - mocks the one we say is our Lord.

"What idols do I have?" You ask. "I don't worship any other god?" But don't we?

We don't have to build an actual altar or apply conscious worship to something for it to be a god. We simply have to look to IT rather than YHWH to provide for us something we desire or even need. Shall I name some?  Relationship. Approval. (or non-disapproval) Security. Comfort. Entertainment. Beauty. Food. Status. Significance. They are sneaky and subtle, but they are idols just the same. And their fruit displays an array of recognizable shades as well: Fear. Anger. Jealousy. Rage. Control. Unforgiveness. Arrogance. 

Then, like a wounded, husband, the Rescuer stands and says, "You love ME? Why then do we dine with your exes? We do you seek their favor or shelter? Love ME. Serve ME. Worship ME. BE MINE."

Verse 23 broke my heart. I cannot imagine my Love asking me to stop singing. I do not want to get to the other side of the earth and find that my shrouded objects of worship actually overshadow their graven images. I will unearth my idols - or, rather, ask Him to do so. I will toss them into the furnace of His holiness. He is all. He is sufficient.

Psalm 32:8 "I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you."

(when we unearth our idols, we may be frightened by what we find...)