One Factory Still Hard at Work: The Idol Factory

One good thing about the global pandemic is that we are forced to face the reality of what we count on for our sense of well-being.  And it has revealed how fickle all these things that we have counted on truly are. 

Here is what I mean. 

Take a hard working husband/father who deals with a lot of stress with their job.  Bosses, deadlines, obnoxious co-workers.  And then he gets home and there are needs he feels pressure to provide for, emotionally, financially, relationally, etc. 

Under normal circumstances he is pretty frazzled and just a few small pushes away from snapping at those around him.  One bad external event from entering a spiral of depression and anxiety. 

Until recently he counted on his weekly basketball games at the Y and an evening at the bar with his friends to open up the pressure valve a bit and decompress the building up stress.  They were so important to him, that any disruption of that pattern would always be directly tied to problems at home and work.  They were what he was counting on for balance and peace. 

But these were all just "things" without any real permanence.  Circumstances could always temporarily eliminate them from his calendar, and now they were completely taken away.  Look at your local police docket.  You shouldn't be surprised to see the growth of reported domestic violence over the last few months. 

Playing basketball at the Y, going out with friends, whatever it is you do to blow off steam, are not inherrently bad things.  But this pandemic does pull back the curtain and reveal our heart.  If something is "taken" from you and it causes your to become angry, bitter, engative, to have your personality deeply impacted, it reveals that you were not internally healthy or whole, but had become reliant on a crutch that had become your source of well-being and hope.

To put it more Biblically, what we are talking about is idolatry. 

They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.- Romans 1:25

Everything in this world, even good things, like, family, friends, food, etc, are finite and imperfect.  When they become the essence of what keeps us content and at peace, they are an idol.  And idol that will only take from you and never give back the hope and peace you are truly in need of. 

John Calvin said this about our condition, "the human heart is a perpetual idol factory"  And I once heard that expanded to the concept by saying, "The human heart is a perpetual idol factory AND IT NEVER IDLES IN CREATING IDOLS"

Why are we perpetually making idols for ourselves.  Because we are desperate for hope.  And time after time we place our hope in things that can never truly satisfy.  But instead of saying, maybe I need to dig deeper, we just throw away with contempt that which we had hoped in and try to fill that void with a new fancy thing that surely won't let us down in the same way.

We throw away relationships, jobs, friendships, homes, gifts, etc in a constant turnover in a desperate attempt to finally find the thing that sticks.  And sometimes we do find something that lasts for a long time.  But we can never forget that in a moment, it is something that can be taken.  Even if we think we finally have found that "thing" that will make us feel peace and contentment, a snap of a finger it can be ripped from us. 

Paul points out to us in Romans the simple truth of our condition.  There is one thing that is eternal, perfect, complete and a source of lasting hope and peace.  God, the creator of the good things that bless us.  But we too often celebrate the gift and not the maker and giver of the gift.

If your child makes you a handmade card for mothers day this coming weekend.  Which do you prefer, the card, or your child?

Of course you prefer your child!

But everyday we say God my happiness is not in you, but only in this object, this person, this thing.  And if I don't have it, I will throw a fit.  Because it is the only thing holding it all together for me.

Until we can say like the author of Lamentations,

I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."- Lamentations 3:24

Then we will never find perfect peace.  As long as we say God, I will be happy as long as you protect this, give me that, change these circumstances....as long as there is anything we count on to do for us what God made us to only perfectly experience through Him, then we have set ourselves up for pain and heartache.

And if we go to our graves with our hope in anything else, the idol you have put your hopes in will not save you.  It is a thing, it is not God. 

Only God saves, gives hope, grants peace, shows purpose.  And this He does for eternity.