Any gift can become an idol. The gold of Egypt was formed into an idol.
It is fashionable to pronounce money/wealth as an idol. Our contemporaries speak of sexuality being one of our idols. I once heard a statement that, at the time, I considered to be one of the most heretical I had ever heard...Children can become an idol.
That seemed absurd. After all what could be more important...than...childr.....(oh!)
I may not have been on your turf, so I risk causing pain by bringing this up; but allow me to simply surface a few questions begged by the text of 1 Samuel 1-3.
Hannah's identity was linked to bearing children. Is my identity too closely tied to my children?
Eli failed to teach what mattered and/or looked the other way while bringing up his boys. Then they didn't heed his too-late warnings. Is my identity so tied to my child's happiness that I fail to teach and discipline?
Eli was unable to see the opportunities for Samuel (at least until God's third try).
Am I too busy to model for a child the simple ways of relationship with God?
Eli, Hannah, and Samuel...and in the weeks ahead David...force me to ask these difficult questions. But there is one more, that comes from personal observation and personal experience.
Constant offerings for appeasement are required for (false) gods and idols. Could it be that we are constantly offering things/experiences/permissive situations to our children to appease them for fear they might turn on us or might not turn out okay?
Is it safe to post a comment on Friday the 13nth?
ReplyDeleteI suppose any "otherwise" good thing or activity can be turned into an idol by valuing those interests above God's interests that he wants for us.
God created "everything" that exists, and called it good! Man with evil intent in his heart can take anything good and create something bad out of it.
It seems that even without evil intent in our heart, that we can do a fair job of messing things up if we don't stay focused on Jesus and his goals for us. Otherwise we become distracted with good things and our own wants in life!
I began to ponder this question after talking to the mother of a very blessed family. She talked about how God had been so good to her and her husband and how blessed they were to not have the dysfunction and brokenness that surrounded them in their affluent neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteI asked her why she thought God blessed them and not her neighbors...she had no answer but was convicted to protect her family from the brokenness, lest they become broken themselves. I think idea of "the family" had become an idol for her.
I proposed the idea that maybe God had blessed them so they could bless others.
And maybe that is how we prevent making idols of good things...remembering that good things, or blessings, are given by God and are to be used for blessing others.
Maybe our "focus on the family" should be to become a little community of salt and light...
I discovered this the hard way myself.... Several years ago, my teenage daughter began to go "off-course" - at first it seemed like typical adolescent stuff, but then no matter what we did, everything just kept getting worse - her attitude, grades slipping, fewer and fewer positive friendships and more questionable ones, refusing to go to church. It got to the point where she ended up changing schools, for her *senior year* and even then, our previously academically gifted daughter barely managed to graduate. It was so hard to believe that this beautiful, bright girl who grew up in a stable, loving home could be so angry, could be so willing to throw away a promising future.
ReplyDeleteAnd, I'm embarrassed to admit, these problems threw me into a real tailspin. I was desperate to figure out the problem, and get it *fixed* My desperation only made things worse.
Eventually, with the help of a great Christian counselor, I was able to see that it was not up to me to fix my daughter. That God holds her future, not I. That He knows what is in store for her, and He is preparing her for that. That He is good, and He loves her even more than I. That I can trust Him, even for something - someone - as utterly, pricelessly precious to me as my child.
As a result, I began to let go (of trying to fix her, to fix things for her, to teach her/reach her/make her understand the consequences of her actions before it was too late) and I began to let God (teach me to listen to her, help me to love her exactly as she is right now not the person I hope she will become, allow Him to teach her through His consequences).
And as a result, our relationship has been healed. And if that were the only result, that would be pretty wonderful. But she has also begun to make better choices in her life, and for that I give Him thanks, and praise.
Just recently I read something by Sarah Young in "Jesus Calling." She wrote that Abraham made an idol of his son Isaac, and that God took Isaac to the very point of death to free Abraham. I had never considered the story of Abraham and Isaac in this way before, and yet this perspective added a whole new - and intensely personal - layer of meaning for me. "Letting go and letting God" certainly felt, for me, as though I was placing my daughter on an altar - deliberately choosing to trust God instead of myself to save her.
So...can a child be an idol? Absolutely. But thank God for His mercy and His forgiveness - because both are right there, waiting to be poured out, the moment we turn back to Him. Thanks for a great - and very timely - post!