As I’m reading Counterfeit Gods by Tim Keller (a book I highly recommend you pick up, by the way) I’m thinking alot about idolatry and the nature of idols. As Keller points out, we typically think of idols like totem poles – wooden or bronze or iron statues with grotesque faces that people bow before while chanting in low, hushed tones.
The idols of today are less visible, but no less insidious.
In fact, an idol can be anything that you look to for complete and total fulfillment. It’s that thing that you look at and say, “If I could only have.. or do… or be…” And in my opinion, one of the biggest is the idol of “how it should be.”
At one point or another, all of us wake up and look at our lives and have that thought: “This isn’t how it ought to be.” Whether we relate it to our job or our house or our spouse or our wealth, we somehow had a different dream about life than what we are living. Now there are certain schools of Christian thought out there that argue that as followers of Christ, you just need to chase that dream. Live with reckless abandon. Get out there and make it happen.
I’m for that, at least to a point. But I’m only for that as long as that dream is a goal; but many times it ceases to become a goal and starts to become an idol. It starts to become an idol when you put all your stock in whatever that dream is, to the point that you feel as though you will never truly be fulfilled unless you posses _______________ . You fill in the blank.
But what is the antidote for such a thing? How can such an idol be smashed to bits? It’s difficult because when “how it should be” is formed into our thinking, it’s done so through countless hours of daydreaming and disappointment. It built on the foundation of starry-eyed gazes and bitterness in equal measure.
It’s the power of the gospel that can send it reeling. Only through the Holy Spirit reminding us, over and over again, that we already have everything – every spiritual blessing in Christ – that indeed, God has held nothing back from us in Christ.
The gospel gives us the ability to look at the idol of “how it should be” and say, “Enough.” Not because we are content with how little we have, but because we suddenly come to the realiziation of how rich we already are. May God give us grace to see the richness of what we’ve been given, and may that vision pulverize the idol of “what should be.”
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Great thoughts, Michael. I’ve been reading this book too and it’s been kicking my butt! One of the statements that Keller makes that has resonated so much with me is:
“What mattered was not what men thought of her, or career success, but what Christ had done for her and how he loved her.” (46-47)
I’m all for chasing God-ordained dreams but at the same time, we must be content in knowing that even if we had to spend the rest of our lives sitting in a field and doing nothing, that would be okay because of all that Christ done.
Perhaps a way of guarding ourselves from allowing our dreams to become idols is to constantly remind ourselves through prayer that the ability to serve God, to pursue the dreams that he has given us, is really just icing on the cake when we ponder the grace that has been extended to us.