This post contains harsh language.
Please know that these are simply statements of what I am learning/convicted about in my own life and are not intended as criticism of anyone besides myself.
That being said, I will now share with you a verse I just read:
Ezekiel 23:37 "They have committed both adultery and Murder-adultery by worshiping idols and murder by burning as sacrifices the children they bore to me."
I found that verse to be convicting because I was thinking recently about idolaty and what it looks like in my life, and about my role as a mother and how well I am doing (or not doing) in that role.
To talk about the idolatry for a second, I was thinking recently about WHY it was so hard to resist the idols of the old testament. What I realized kind of suprised me. I tend to think of the people of Abram's time as being like modern-day-me. I always thought they worshiped idols because they were bored or...naive. I forget that they were largely uneducated farmers.
According to the popular opinion of their day, there really was a god of fertility and a god of the sun and gods of...all sorts of things. Anyway, it was considered "good business sense" to worship and appease the gods. If you did not worship the sun god, and then your fields were flooded out, it was not really suprising to anyone around you. You should have known better. If you did not make a sacrifice to the fertility gods and then had no sons to work your fields or care for you in your old age, who would take pity on you? You asked for it.
And with life as hard as it was back then, I am sure they saw the worship of these gods as a legitimate necessity! And then along comes God, and calls a man called Abram to leave all of that behind. To trust and worship only one God and follow Him to places unknown. That would have been hard. Kind of like giving up a secure job with a retirement plan and medical insurance and following a Man from Galilee who says that he has no place to live but that the eternal rewards will be great.
So I have been thinking about all of the things that I worship without knowing it. And the funny thing is, I am as superstitious and uneducated about it as the people of Abram's day. I think that I will not be able to live without this computer right here, even though history is filled with stories of people who did just fine. I think that I must own an extensive wardrobe with things relatively up to date and appropriate for various occasions. I forget that peole have survived life with only two or three changes of clothes to their name. I think that our meals should have variety and ignore the fact that there are many places where people live relatively healthy lives with a steady diet of rice and vegetables. I feel a "need" to relax and watch movies and yet, people survived just fine before the motion picture industry came along. And for these simple pleasures I will strive and make sacrifices. I could spend more time caring for people. I could give more money to worthy forms of ministry, I could free up some thought and worry, but instead I will continue to worship these things. If I stopped what would become of me?
Oh, and about that other part of the verse, the morbid part about child sacrifice...certainly I would know better than to ever give my sweet child to be burned as a sacrifice to some imaginary deity!!! But do I? Oh reader! I have a gruesome confession! I have made myself believe that I am a deity! My little boy asks me to read one more book, but I am tired. He wants to be played with, but I am busy. He needs consistant correction and dedicated training in righteousness, but I am in a grumpy mood. And so his childhood burns away, one moment at a time, just twigs consumed by the raging fire of my selfishness. I tell him I love him, and then throw another chance to teach him what unconditional love looks like on the altar of ME when I become angry with him over some childish mistake.
Lord, when will I learn? When will I see You for who You really are and see the benefit of forsaking these idols to worship You?
Romans 5:5 "But people are counted as righteous, not because of their works but becasue of their faith in God who forgives sinners."
Please forgive me Lord. And begin to live through me so that my life will count for something.
