Creating idols
Isaiah 44:17 From the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and
worships. He prays to it and says, "Save me; you are my god."
The absurdity of idolatry is clearly expressed in Isaiah 44. The image is of
people working hard in their daily lives and using up all of their skills and
energy to produce a metal idol or wooden god. They bow down and worship
something that they have created with their own hands. They don’t seem to
realize that it is still just a piece of metal or block of wood. The only power
that the hand-made idol has is that which is superstitiously conferred upon it
by the maker.
Today, we make idols of our gadgets and apps, cell phones and computers. We find
it difficult to go through each morning, afternoon, or evening without checking
our email, updating our statuses, or texting our friends. We use up more of our
energy and time with our digital idols without giving a serious thought as to
what this is doing to us emotionally, psychologically, or spiritually. Our
hearts and minds are becoming jammed full of trivial messages and our long term
memory skills are being hampered. We are all suffering from digital dementia, a
forgetting of what’s really important and a diminishing of who we are actually
meant to be in God’s eyes.
We laugh at the absurdity of the ancient peoples, who bowed down and worshipped
metal and wooden idols, but is the laugh actually upon ourselves? Have we let
our progressive gadgets become personal gods and the latest instruments turn
into our own lavish idols?
I guess that the challenging questions that we need to ask ourselves are these:
how many days in the week can I go without reading or studying God’s Word? How
many hours in the day can I go without reading emails or checking my texts?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, some days we live our lives apart from You and end up taking
Your grace for granted. We get so obsessed with our communications that we
forget about what You are constantly trying to say to us. Forgive us for being
distracted; pardon us for making idols out of our cell phones, computers, and
stuff. Help us to get back on the path of discipleship that You have planned for
each of our lives. In Your Holy Name, we pray. Amen.
John Stuart TRAQAIR@aol.com