path of life

"A highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness.  The unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for others... the redeemed shall walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads.  They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."  Isaiah 35:8-10

worship

“Do not make an idol for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. You must not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God,…” Exodus 20:4-5


The second commandment is one we tend to ignore in Christian society. Making graven images just isn’t that popular in our culture and we probably smile at the thought of being tempted to bow down and worship something made out of wood or stone or brass. If that is our only definition of idolatry then most of us probably can check off that commandment on our spiritual ‘to do’ list and go on our merry way. But is that all there is to it? Certainly bowing down to a physical man made object is part of the sin described in this commandment but there is more than one way to make an idol for ourselves.

What if we expanded our category of false gods beyond the realm of statues to included anything that we value or seek more than Adonai Yahweh, the Lord God? What if considered that idols can be things like; money, power, a friendship, our personal appearance, a job, education, a hobby, service, a house, or even ourselves? Is there something, anything, that you feel you could not live without? - ‘If _____ was taken away I’d fall apart!’ - Is there something that fills in that blank for you? Is there something or someone that you seek to give you joy, contentment, to fill that hole that only God can? Is there something you want so badly that you would sin to achieve it? If you look at idolatry through those lenses we are all guilty, in fact in may even be our most common sin! I know for me putting God first has never been easy. I have often believed the lie from Satan that something else could satisfy me better, that I must have God + _____ but it is such a lie! The truth is that anytime I put something on the same level as God it will bring me no lasting happiness but only heart ache and pain. Idols don’t fill us. They can’t. Instead they destroy us when we put our trust in them. I dare not seek a person above God because that relationship can never fill me and looking to that person as my god will devastate our friendship. It is so sad to rob ourselves of the pure joy good gifts from God can bring by putting them up on a pedestal, by sinking our claws into them and saying ’this is mine! Don’t take it away, I need it to live!’

But it is hard to let go. Hard because our hearts are sinful and still believe, whatever we try to tell them, that our idols are necessary for joy and life. To be free from this sin we must ask and allow God to transform our hearts. It can be easy to become discouraged when we come face to face with our own ugly sin but take heart my sisters, that’s why Jesus died, to save us from our sins!! He is in the business of changing lives so surrender your idols to Him and ask for strength to believe that God is ALL you need. I want to be single minded and whole hearted, don’t you?

As I have pondered idolatry in months past, trying to guard my heart against desiring anything too much and sometimes feeling my sin too great for me, a very wonderful thought came to me. There is one person I can never cling to or think about too much. I never have to worry that I might be loving Him too much, He can never occupy too high a place in my heart. I am of course talking about my King and Savior, Jesus. All my adoration, all my tribute, all my service will never become sinful because I can never give Him too much. Isn’t it freeing? Freeing because we were after all made to worship! Idolatry directs our worship in the wrong direction, from an all powerful God to some fallible part of His creation. Let us turn our hearts from our pitiful false gods to the True and Living One and pour our lives into worshiping Him. I imagine the more we know of HIS greatness the less likely we will be to turn again to empty things.

love that will not...

“O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O Light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to Thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in Thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to Thee;
I trace that rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from Thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.”
~George Matheson

This Hymn writer did not write this song theoretically.  George Matheson knew what it was to experience pain and to have to bear a heavy cross.  You see he went blind at age 18 and when his fiancé heard of it she broke their engagement.  Yes, George Matheson wrote from the depths of His soul and  ’proved’ God true even in such trying circumstances.

One of the things I find most precious as I walk longer with God is seeing glimpses of His promises worked out in my life.  This is such a beautiful hymn and it blesses me so much more because of the things life has brought me.  I have experienced nothing as hard as the writer of this song yet I can see traces of what he is saying in my own life and so it rings true in my heart.

Love that will not let me go, will not let you go, I pray you have experienced it.  I wander sometimes from God.  I don’t mean to, but I see something, something that glitters, something that I think deep down in my heart will satisfy me and before I know it I have stopped looking up to God for all I need and am chasing a vapor.  Perhaps it seems good for a while, I am giddy with the hope that I shall soon grasp what I want, but this new idol of mine is illusive.  I can not attain it.  It runs from me and then suddenly an enormous thunderclap shakes my world and I find that I am alone with nothing sure to cling to …only not really alone.  I whirl around to run back to the good path I left and run straight into my Father’s arms.  He was there all along.  I was not looking for it, but His love was following me.  I see it now in all my little circumstances, even while I was straying, He was seeking to draw me home.  That terrible thunderclap He allowed, not to terrify me, but to send me home because He knows that I will find true security and love nowhere else.  Only there will life, can life richer fuller be.  Is not our God’s love amazing?

O light  Why do I so often wander from Him?  Why do I foolishly make His light follow me instead of yielding to Him?  Surrender is not easy.  So often I want to control my tiny flame.  I am afraid of His path, to my sin filled heart it looks unpleasant, scary, very much like a place where I will have to die to myself.  Have I forgotten already that there is no joy in the path I chose?  Do I not remember that the object I thought would bring me happiness refused to be grasped and brought me only pain?  God does not promise to do things my way, but we do know He promises that He will do only what is good.  He can only do what is good because He is good.  "...God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all." 1John 1:5  This life of mine this borrowed ray is in much better hands if given back to my Creator.   I may think I can create a better destiny for myself but only in surrendering my borrowed ray can my life brighter fairer be.  In Him is light.

My favorite verse, O joy that seekest me through pain.  It is true is it not?  Joy does seek us through pain.  In the very midst of our greatest trial, when it is darkest all around us she meets us in that hard place,  but sometimes we turn away.  We do not want to acknowledge joy, I do not want to acknowledge joy.  I would rather wrap my pain around me.  I know my pain is real and in self-centeredness think that joy may lesson it’s reality.  No I say with my back toward her, come back tomorrow, today I would rather abide in my pain.  But God is good.  His joy keeps seeking us through pain.  Those rainbows, they are more precious are they not because of their setting of rain.  Such little things in each day are our rainbows; frost sparkling in the sunlight, an unexpected phone call, a little want supplied…  Yet we have a choice to accept these rainbows as true reasons for joy, or reject them because they come through the rain.  My favorite rainbow came at a very trying time in my life.  I do not even remember what I was struggling with.  I know in desperation I had told God I did not feel I could keep going.  His answer?  He sent me out in the dark and cold late at night -figuratively kicking and screaming - to deliver a meal to a new mom I hardly knew.  There I was in her minuscule living room so much barer of things than my own living room at home,  sitting on her little coach, holding her new son, the tiniest baby I have ever seen.  He didn’t weigh a thing in my arms but his blue eyes were so big in that adorable face.  He looked at me, a little one who had never met his father and I listened as his mother opened her heart to me.  She was puzzled by how kind a few of God’s children had been to her, She isn’t used to people being nice to her, she is used to being unloved and alone.  “Thank you Jesus,” I think to myself,  “that I know so little of what that is like!  But thank you Jesus that I know a little of what that is like.”  I can understand her heart now, yesterday these would have just been words.  This love that flows only from Christ,  she did not recognize it, she did not understand it, but she did see it, she knew it was real.  Driving home it was still dark, and cold, and even later than before, but my house had never looked so large before.  My problems were still there but there was something else deep down sparkling beside them, outshining them.  It was joy.  Not a light flippant emotion but deep heavy one.  Perhaps one can only know it through pain.  It was hopeful and knowing.  God whispered in that joy, through my pain, “see -I’m not finished yet, see -I am working, see -trust me.”  Yes, Joy seeks me, seeks you, through pain.  Is not our God gracious beyond all measure?

O cross, the hardest perhaps, how can we not shrink from such a burden?  Yet it goes on - I dare not ask to fly from thee-  I dare not!  Such a perspective, have you felt that pull before?  We dare not ask to fly from the crosses that God has brought into our lives.  Why?  Perhaps because of what we have found there.  Have we not grown closer to our Heavenly Father in these places and tasted the sweetness of deeper fellowship?  Have we not learned that His path while not painless is so much better than our own?  Do we not want more of that deep and abiding joy?  We dare not ask to leave such places because of what we would miss.  It would not be worth it to gain a life without crosses and loose all the gold we gather by them.