Posts Tagged ‘spirituality’

on being unstuck

Sunday, December 26th, 2010

My family moved around pretty often when I was growing up, due to my father’s career as a Marine. People ask whether it’s hard to be uprooted every three years or so, but it really wasn’t difficult for me. For all the comforts you stand to lose in leaving, you also stand to be loosed from some discomforts.

For instance, as a middle-schooler, I had a pretty sour disposition and very few friends. When I moved to a new city as a freshman, I decided I would be a totally different person. I remember clearly the conversation I had with myself before the doors opened my first day: “Lloyd, it doesn’t have to be like it was at your old school. No one knows you, and as far as they’re concerned, you might be the coolest guy here. Take down those walls you’ve built up and make some friends.” I didn’t turn out to be the coolest guy in school, but my social station improved greatly. Whatever people thought of you before, whether good or bad, you can change it all in a new place.

I bring this up because yesterday in my Bible reading, I felt led to look at Ezekiel 33. Ezekiel is told to relay a message for God. I’d like to quote it here because no summary I have composed does justice to the import of this passage:

Therefore, son of man, say to your people:

“If someone who is righteous disobeys, that person’s former righteousness will count for nothing. And if someone who is wicked repents, that person’s former wickedness will not bring condemnation. The righteous person who sins will not be allowed to live even though they were formerly righteous.

If I tell a righteous person that they will surely live, but then they trust in their righteousness and do evil, none of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered; they will die for the evil they have done.

And if I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ but they then turn away from their sin and do what is just and right — if they give back what they took in pledge for a loan, return what they have stolen, follow the decrees that give life, and do no evil — that person will surely live; they will not die. None of the sins that person has committed will be remembered against them. They have done what is just and right; they will surely live.

Yet your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But it is their way that is not just. If a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, they will die for it. And if a wicked person turns away from their wickedness and does what is just and right, they will live by doing so. Yet you Israelites say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But I will judge each of you according to your own ways.”

It’s shocking to me how accommodating God is here. What I mean by that is, God gives us the freedom to change our mind about what kind of person we want to be.

We humans have a tendency to assign one another (and ourselves) permanent labels based on our past. Inertia is a physical concept, but we import it frequently into the spiritual realm. If I lied to someone yesterday, they might assume I am that much more likely to lie again today. Conversely, if I’ve been making good choices for the last ten years, people may assume I’m nigh insusceptible to do anything different.

It’s funny how often a godly life is seen as a set of chains to restrict us from doing what we like, and yet God’s very choice to allow us free will also pegs Him as unfair. How can He immediately accept someone’s choice to change for the better when they’ve been making bad decisions for years? Do all those things count for nothing? Conversely, how can He condemn someone who begins to make bad decisions when they’ve been doing well all their lives? Do not all those years count for anything?

The problem, I think, is with our skewed perspective. We only see these policies of God’s in light of how they affect us in the moment. If God allows me to have a second chance, to change and do better in the future, then He’s great. If He allows that same freedom to someone who wounded me deeply, He is unjust. Conversely, if God forces those who commit to Him never to change their mind, never to have the freedom to walk away, He has created soulless automatons. If He allows someone who has stayed on the path their entire life the freedom to turn off at the last minute and waste all those years, He is heartless.

In our twisted way of thinking, God cannot win.

Returning to our tendency to assign these permanent labels, let me confess that I’ve been completely guilty of that way of thinking, myself. I’ve assumed people who have wounded me in the past would continue to do so, and so put up my walls to refuse them the opportunity. The cruel end of that path, by the way, is even more pain. It often results in the loss of what might have been wonderful if we’d not made such stalwart assumptions.

Perhaps even more cruel is when I affix these permanent labels to myself. We all know the voice inside who whispers that we can never escape who we are or who we once have been. We choose to agree with this voice, and descend ever further into our own demise.

It’s comforting to know that the voice with whom we’ve so frequently agreed is lying. What we once were — even what we are — is not binding. Rather, we have the freedom (and every reason) to choose better.

It’s been a long time since middle school, and I’m thankful most of you never knew me then. Being stuck with that personality would be pretty unpleasant. Whatever laurels I may now possess, I want to resist the temptation to rest on them. The same voice that would bind me to pits in my past would just as soon blind me to those in my present.

Lord, teach me to walk right beside You, following where You lead. Only in submitting to You do I escape the chains behind and the pitfalls ahead.

food chains

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

Last year, I experimented with a vegetarian diet for six weeks, just to try it. I have no ethical problem with eating animals; my foray was inspired by a desire to eat more healthily as much as by a curiosity of how difficult it would be. I abstained from beef, poultry, pork, eggs, fish, and even foods containing animal broth — I wanted to make sure no animals died as a direct result of my diet. It was not nearly so difficult as I anticipated, since there are plenty of tasty substitutes for animal meat available these days.

An unexpected side effect was that I started paying attention (for awhile, anyway) to the fact that I was taking an animal’s life when I ate meat. This is not intuitive for Americans. Our food is highly processed, and we are psychologically removed from that fact by the very design of our advertising. Not all cultures suffer this indifference, though. For instance, before eating a meal in Japan, one usually says “Itadakimasu” (いただきます for Hiragana readers). Literally, it means “I will receive,” but it is understood that what will be received is two-fold: On the one hand, you are receiving a meal from a host who has prepared it. On the other, you are receiving nourishment from an animal that has given its life, or spirit.

I was reminded of this on Saturday night, when I had the opportunity to see Disney’s new nature documentary, Oceans. Several scenes feature our oceans’ complex food chains. Gargantuan Blue Whales swallow tiny Krill by the thousands. Bigger fish eat smaller fish, and smaller fish eat plants or even smaller fish.

Watching a Dolphin chase down a Tuna was not particularly disturbing to me. I noticed something, though: witnessing a Great White Shark hunt a Sea Lion was uncomfortable… and eating popcorn as baby sea turtles were carried off and eaten by seagulls just felt wrong. What’s the reason for this disparity?

Maybe seeing lots of animals die at one time keeps me from viewing them as individuals and making a connection. Perhaps it’s more difficult to identify with a fish than with a mammal. Definitely, it seems unfair that baby Turtles don’t even make it to the water before they’re subjected to the maw of a hungry sky rat Seagull.

It seems that I pick favorites (unconsciously) among animals based solely on how I can identify with them, and that thought is disturbing. However, it is symptomatic of a much more serious problem if it also describes how I relate to my fellow humans.

A close friend of mine shared with me recently that she looks at how humans value one another in terms of fractions. For instance, I might look at the guy who sells me a burrito at Taco Bell as 1/4 of a person. He is only valuable to me insofar as he will hand me the food that I request. I might feel superior to him if I think I am paid more for my job or if I think it requires more expertise to perform. Maybe I wouldn’t take much effort in being polite to him or considering how his day has been. On the other hand, I might treat a good looking celebrity as 7/4 of a person if she needed something from me. Perhaps I would listen carefully to everything she said in hopes of making her happy.

If we don’t automatically identify with someone because they are like us or because they can fill some need of ours, we have a tendency to treat them as less of a person and to be less concerned with their needs.

As it is in the ocean, so it is in life. Everyone suffers and is subject to the merciless nature of this world. Young children, the old and sick, the good looking and the undesirable will experience pain, loss, and death. Some go before they ever have a chance to build up their defenses, and parents are not there to provide protection. Some are hunted down in the prime of their lives by a calculated and merciless enemy. Some find themselves dying alone and friendless when age has taken a toll on their bodies.

It’s easy for me to have more sympathy for children, or good-looking people, or those who it seems are making some sort of contribution to society. That thought worries me, and more so because I don’t feel like it’s one I have consciously developed. Perhaps if I notice this in myself, others may be in that situation, too.

For those of us who follow Jesus of Nazareth, we are called to a different Way:

As Jesus was approaching Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the road begging. Now hearing a crowd going by, he began to inquire what this was. They told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And he called out, saying, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Those who led the way were sternly telling him to be quiet; but he kept crying out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus stopped and commanded that he be brought to Him; and when he came near, He questioned him, “What do you want Me to do for you?” And he said, “Lord, I want to regain my sight!” And Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and began following Him, glorifying God; and when all the people saw it, they gave praise to God.

My friend who talked about fractions said she thought Jesus never viewed people that way. Everyone else tells the blind and the hurting and the forgotten to be quiet and to leave Jesus alone, but He looks at things differently. As His followers, should we not try and do the same?

In the end, we still live in a dog-eat-dog world. People are going to suffer and get knocked down by the world… but if every follower of Jesus tries a little more to love the unloved and to treat them like Jesus would, the ocean will become a little less scary.

Mara

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

I’ve been working with a congregation in Mesquite, TX for the last few months. We’re studying through a series in Ruth, and this past Sunday, I talked about some of Naomi’s suffering.

The truth, though, is that I feel like teaching on suffering is pretty pointless for me. Pointless because it’s been taught and explored by people far more intelligent and studied than myself. Pointless because to teach about suffering, you have to know of suffering. No matter how much I might feel I’m hurting at some particular point in time, I know that mine is merely a speck of sand compared to the mountains others have faced.

But perhaps more significant than any of those reasons, it feels pointless because I don’t know why God doesn’t intervene to stop it. Why doesn’t He sit down and warn us Himself before we walk into worlds of pain? If His final plan is to wipe away every tear from our eyes, why is He letting us cry so many now? And I’ll give you a heads up, this isn’t one of those posts where I have some solution waiting in the wings. I’ve got nothing. I don’t understand it. I have no answers.

Naomi lived in Israel with her husband and two sons. There was a famine, though, and so they moved to a different country to try and make ends meet. But Naomi’s husband died; so she was left with two children and no husband. She could have moved back, but what good would that do with no food to eat? So she took care of her sons, and they married women in the foreign land. After living ten years in this new place, some of which she spent alone and sad because of her husband’s death, her sons died too. That was the last straw. She was now an older widow taking care of two younger widows, neither of them even from her own country.

When she heard there was food back home, she found no more reason to stay. She told her daughters-in-law that they’d be better off staying where they were, to find new husbands, and to move on with their lives. One stayed, and the other refused; her name was Ruth.

When Naomi made it back to her home in Israel, it had been over ten years. When her people greeted her, she had some interesting things to say:

“Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because El Shaddai has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; El Shaddai has brought misfortune upon me.”

Naomi is a Hebrew word that means ‘pleasant’. Coming home minus two sons and a husband, Naomi didn’t feel very pleasant. Mara means ‘bitter’ — and that is how she felt. That seems fair. She had been on a very hard road. What strikes me as odd, though, is that she attributed her hurt to God. Both El Shaddai and LORD refer to the God of Israel. So, “God has made my life very bitter. God has brought me back empty. God has afflicted me. God has brought misfortune upon me.” She never says God did anything wrong here, but she believes He is responsible. By far, the most interesting thing to me is that never once, in the entire remainder of the book, does God or the author reject that claim.

I’m usually pretty reticent to lay any of my suffering on God’s shoulders, because it could be Satan, right? Or maybe someone else made choices that were wrong and it’s affecting me? Or maybe I made choices and I’m facing the consequences. Sometimes things happen for which no instigating party can be given credit. But when I hear Naomi’s assertion, I can’t help but think of Job:

Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away.

I remember that nowhere in the text of Job does God deny responsibility for taking away Job’s wealth and family. Here, we have more details than we do for Naomi; God actually allowed Satan to hurt Job and those he loved. In the end, it was Satan who instigated the pain, but God clearly let it happen. In fact, Satan had to ask God’s permission, so in this case, is God not ultimately responsible? Apparently, Job did not sin in thinking so.

For a moment, let me just assume that Naomi and Job were right… that God is responsible for your suffering and for mine. What God gives only departs when He takes it away, and when those we love are hurt, it is not without God’s permission. I’ve thought about whether that assumption makes God no longer good, or whether it makes Him too unpredictable or scary to serve. In the end, I think it really just means my assumptions about Him were wrong. The idea that a good and just and loving God could simultaneously be responsible for bad and unjust and hate-inspired suffering — that is a hard pill to swallow. Of course, it’s easier to leave that pill in its academic bottle when you, or those you truly love, are not suffering.

When it really hits home, though, when you are hurting, or when it’s someone you love (and you’ll know you love them when you truly wish you could take their place), then that hard pill grows jagged edges and lodges itself right in your throat. And how do you breathe like that, much less function? How do you keep putting one foot in front of the other without falling over?

I don’t know the answers to any of those questions. I do know this, though: whether or not I love God, whether I do good deeds or evil, I will suffer in this life. If I had to choose one entity to be responsible for that suffering, it would be the God who gave his Son.

King David, the sinner, the adulterer, the murderer, the man after God’s own heart, once found his people in trouble with God.

By the text’s own admission, God influenced David to do something that would cause Israel to suffer. David commanded his armies and fighting men to be counted, which was forbidden in the law. This count resulted in a punishment for Israel, and David was offered three possible options for that punishment: Either there would be seven years of famine, or three months of military defeat, or three days of pestilence in the land.

David did not try to get out of the punishment, but rather reasoned that if the suffering was to come from any source, He would rather it come from God and not from man, “for His mercies are great.”

In the end, that is what I choose. If I must suffer, I’d rather it be at the command of a loving God, rather than at the remorseless hands of man or Satan. If God gives, I will praise Him, and be glad. If God takes away, I will praise Him, and not be afraid to cry out in pain. God’s mercies are great, and I will trust Him to do what is best.

blood, fear, and healing

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

My younger brother was always more athletic than I, but I never truly accepted that fact until the winter Olympics of 1988. Back in 1988, one of the most exciting events was speed skating (looks like it’s headed that way again in 2010, by the way).

We lived in a house with wooden floors then, and my mother kept them clean and polished. She would always tell us to be careful, because they could get pretty slick. Barefoot, it was no problem, but with socks you could lose your traction. My brother saw this as more of a feature than anything else. He recognized the potential for a rink, and thus began his experiments with inertia.

He made it look easy. He would take a running start from our room, grab the door post as he swung out, sliding in a half oval down the hallway, and end up in the adjacent guest room. It was cool. I don’t say that just because I was 7… you would think it was cool if you saw it now.

I watched him 2 or 3 times before the thought occurred: “I can do this.” I put on some socks, and even had him give me a final demonstration to make sure I was clear on the mechanics. My running start went very well, but the thing about inertia is that it’s a real problem if you don’t manage it. My speed stayed up… my direction did not. By the time I’d picked myself up off the floor, one tooth had cut entirely through my upper lip, and I was pouring blood out of my mouth.

My Dad was out working on the car while all of this was going on. Both of my parents had told me not to run on that floor, and now there was blood all over. I couldn’t keep it from dripping through my fingers. Mom had just cleaned. I had no interest in her finding the floor that way. I wasn’t crying, because it didn’t really hurt, and I couldn’t see my own face, so I didn’t know how bad it was. My idea was to ask Dad if we had any band-aids. Once I stopped the bleeding, I was going to clean up the floor before anyone saw the mess. It was the perfect plan.

Now, my father is a very smart man. That doesn’t always come out to everyone, but it’s true. He’s smart in mathematics, physics, and radar engineering. One of his best qualities, though, is that he reacts intelligently in an emergency. He stays calm, and has a good idea about how to keep other people that way. So I know that when I asked whether we had any band-aids, he knew that a band-aid wasn’t going to cut it. He also knows me very well… he is my Dad, after all. He took a look at my mouth and told me that we needed to show Mom when she got home.

I forgot to mention that my Mom was out grocery shopping at the time. If Mom had been home, none of this would have ever happened in the first place. That mommy sixth sense of hers would have been tripped before my brother even put on the first sock. It must have been tingling anyway, because she was home within minutes of my accident (for those who don’t realize it, this was before cell phones, so we couldn’t call her). In the few seconds it took my Mom to figure out what was going on and to look at my mouth, she also knew a band-aid wasn’t going to fix this. Unfortunately, her knowledge about me was temporarily overridden by her motherly care, and she blurted out the truth: “that’s going to need stitches.” This was not what I wanted to hear.

In that moment, I transformed from a very calm little boy who was bleeding profusely out of his mouth to a very terrified one bent on avoiding the hospital. Someone sewing my skin shut was not in my game plan, and I let everyone know it. Minutes later, my poor parents were experiencing the horror of trying to get me into the car. I refused, and physically resisted every effort they made. In the process, our entire neighborhood got to spend that Saturday morning hearing my screams that my parents were trying to kill me. At one point I landed a fist into my Mom’s throat as I was flailing around and trying to get loose. Before it was over, my Dad was vocally considering tying me up with a rope, and he wasn’t kidding.

It wasn’t much better when we arrived at the hospital. I was outnumbered by my parents and doctors, but had no intention of giving up. I had my hands clamped over my mouth and felt like I could keep that up indefinitely. In retrospect, I think I probably terrified other children at the hospital that day, what with the insane look on my face and blood dripping out through my hands. In the end, they managed to pry my fingers back and confirm the need for stitches.

I remember very specifically one of the orderlies asking me whether I was going to do this “like a big boy” or whether they were going to have to “strap me down.” At 7 years old, I said: “you better strap me down.”

In the end, they sewed up my lip, but it was a lot harder than it had to be. My parents even made me go back and apologize to the doctors for my behavior.

I was just so afraid of those stitches. I didn’t like needles. I was scared of the pain.

It was clear to everyone but me that I needed them though. It’s hard to believe that I actually wanted to use a band-aid. I was so busy protecting myself that I didn’t have time to look in the mirror and see how bad it was. I was terrified.

The doctors knew what they were doing, though. They knew that even as the needle and thread pierced my flesh, it would also bind. It would put my body in a state of healing. The pain was minimal, but it would truly stop the bleeding — the way a band-aid never could. Though I resisted and fought with every ounce of my strength, they did what was best for me.

How often does this happen in our spiritual lives? The wound is there. We cannot stop the bleeding. We desperately want to cover it all up before anyone can see. We fear the pain of legitimate treatment to the point that we’re willing to accept the superficial. We are terrified.

But the God of all creation has the solution. The psalmist wrote: He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds.

I still bear the scar today from my experience in the ER. If I hadn’t struggled so much, I might not still have a fat upper lip on one side.

Our God is the master Healer, though. When He binds up, there is no scar. When He treats, there is no trace of infirmity. When He is finished, we are just as good as when He created us.

Every now and then, I still trip and fall. Even today, I nearly knocked over a girl as I was coming out of a restaurant. So it is with my spirit. I make mistakes; I stray from God’s will. I am encouraged to know that when I am bruised and broken, the Lord is gracious to me and will heal me if I am willing.

I shudder to think what would have happened if I’d been allowed to try band-aids as I wished, or if I’d been left to continue bleeding. The wound could have become infected and festered; I might even have died. May we never be so afraid of the treatment that we remain bleeding and broken. The master Healer is always ready to treat us, if we will trust Him long enough to work.

idols in my heart

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

A couple of weeks ago, I was reading through some of Ezekiel, and I came across a section I’d never given much attention before. Chapter 14 begins:

Then some elders of Israel came to me and sat down before me. And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts and have put right before their faces the stumbling block of their iniquity. Should I be consulted by them at all? Therefore speak to them and tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “Any man of the house of Israel who sets up idols in his heart, puts right before his face the stumbling block of his iniquity, and then comes to the prophet, I the LORD will be brought to give him an answer in the matter in view of the multitude of his idols, in order to lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel who are estranged from Me through all their idols.”‘”

Of course, it’s no surprise that Israel’s God is no fan of idols. He kind of mentions that in the first two commandments. There is something more going on here, though. Notice God’s description of the elders: they have set up idols “in their hearts”. They “put right before their faces the stumbling block of their iniquity.” In fact, God is so upset about this that He said these people have no right to consult Him at all.

Wait… what?

Since when does God not want people asking Him for advice? Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? It seems we’re going to have to dig a little deeper.

A God who hurts

You see, the prophet Ezekiel lived with his people in Babylon. God allowed Israel’s defeat and exile because they refused to leave other gods behind. Despite this punishment, the leaders and the people were unwilling to make the changes that would provide reconciliation. Back in chapter 6, God details the consequences of idol worship:

In all your dwellings, cities will become waste and the high places will be desolate, that your altars may become waste and desolate, your idols may be broken and brought to an end, your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be blotted out. The slain will fall among you, and you will know that I am the LORD. However, I will leave a remnant, for you will have those who escaped the sword among the nations when you are scattered among the countries. Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations to which they will be carried captive, how I have been hurt by their adulterous hearts which turned away from Me, and by their eyes which played the harlot after their idols; and they will loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed, for all their abominations.

So there we have it. Amid God’s righteous anger, there is something else stirring. God is hurt. It seems impossible that supreme deity could be wounded, but the message to Ezekiel is undeniable: God is hurt.

Anyone who has been rejected remembers the sting. No one knows it like God, though. Just as God’s love is infinitely deeper than our own, the pain He feels at our rejection is infinitely sharper than any we could feel.

In chapter 8, God shares the source of His pain. He provides a spiritual vision in which Ezekiel is shown the inside of the temple area. God wants him to see what Israel’s spiritual leaders are doing:

And He said to me, “Go in and see the wicked abominations that they are committing here.” So I entered and looked, and behold, every form of creeping things and beasts and detestable things, with all the idols of the house of Israel, were carved on the wall all around. Standing in front of them were seventy elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan standing among them, each man with his censer in his hand and the fragrance of the cloud of incense rising. Then He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are committing in the dark, each man in the room of his carved images? For they say, ‘The LORD does not see us; the LORD has forsaken the land.'”
A love destroyed

I have never been married, but I can imagine the pain of betrayal would be severe. The only thing I can envision that would make it worse is deception. It is a grave matter to openly reject someone and break a commitment. It is something much worse to do it in secret, to hide it, and to act as though vows have not been broken, and as though sin has not occurred. Those who do such things are scorned by society for their lack of compassion. Our God knows about that kind of pain.

Sometimes, when we make poor choices, it seems easiest to continue on that path. When vows have been broken, and so much has been lost, restoration seems like a foolish dream. We might choose to drown ourselves in the pleasures of sin, and extinguish any hope for a new beginning. Looking at chapter 11, it would seem Israel did just that. They were not interested in coming back to God. They believed He had abandoned them and left them for dead. Even Ezekiel wondered whether God would completely destroy what remained of his people. Fortunately, that was not the plan:

Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries among which you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. When they come there, they will remove all its detestable things and all its abominations from it, and I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them and I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them. Then they will be My people, and I shall be their God.

God never wanted to rid Himself of Israel. He always wanted them to come back. He only disciplined them so that their idols could be broken and brought to an end. By the time we arrive back at chapter 14, Israel has yet to repent, and God has yet to give up.

God knew that the problem was not the wood, or the clay, or the stone from which Israel’s idols were built. The problem was that the idols had been set up directly in their hearts. Israel’s idols were without spirit, without love, and without life. Now that those idols lived in human hearts, the hearts became just like what lived inside. They became stone.

A hope restored

All humans feel temptation. Sometimes we wonder why God even lets it exist. It might help to know that temptation has another name, though: free will. One cannot exist without the other. Free will is the thing that makes our good choices so beautiful, and our bad ones so terrible. Neither our good nor our evil is forced.

God knows we are tempted, and He knows we have a choice. What He wants is for us to choose Him first. He wants us to love Him, and trust that His way is best. It’s what He wanted from Abraham when He told him to move to a new place. It’s what He wanted from David when He promised the kingdom of Israel. It’s what He wanted from Jesus when He came to save the world, and it’s what He wants from us now.

Even with all the love and mercy God provides, He knows we will never choose Him first if we keep our idols hanging around. As long as we keep our stumbling blocks right before our faces, it is pointless to ask for His guidance.

If I were married, but decided to leave my wife and be unfaithful, it would be so hurtful to her. How much more of a slap in the face would it be if I called her up for directions to a hotel where I planned to take my mistress? That is what I do to God every time I choose to keep my idols right in front of my face. I call myself His child and His beloved, but will I choose Him first? Even as I began writing these thoughts, I was tempted to linger too long on one of those paid programming advertisements that are prominent just before dawn. What will I choose? How will I let God know that He comes first?

Let us make no mistake; God will not give up on us. However, if we want to seek His presence and simultaneously live in sin, He will let us know just how bad things are without Him. I the LORD will be brought to give him an answer in the matter in view of the multitude of his idols, in order to lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel who are estranged from Me through all their idols. Even in His discipline, God is seeking out our hearts and moving us to choose Him first.

No matter what you have done, or how far you have run from God, He is seeking you out. Israel broke their vows with God so many times, and yet through Hosea He says:

I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’ I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ “You are my people”; and they will say, “You are my God.”

You may be like me. You may be covered by the blood of Jesus of Nazareth, and still tempted to sin. Let’s encourage one another to remember that we are not who we once were:

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

I want God’s presence and guidance in my life. I want to love Him and make Him proud. I want to claim Him as Father and ask Him for good gifts. I am weak, though. Let’s encourage one another to smash down the idols in our lives, and never set them up in our hearts.