If only someone had been there to tell me this...

Be careful of what you let become an idol.

 

Theoretically, not letting anyone or anything come between you and God is easy. How could anything compare to our ever loving, ever forgiving, ever faithful God? When His majesty is displayed all around you… all his creation screaming his perfection everywhere you go…you’d think, “nothing could ever compare to Him”.

 

And while it’s true that nothing ever could compare to him, it’s unbelievably easy to trick yourself into thinking something or someone does. Too easy. You might not (you probably don’t) even realize that you’re doing it, but you’re idolizing this thing… or person… above God. This particular post is going to be about idolizing a person. Trust me, this lesson is learned from experience. Let my failures be your lessons.

 

When it’s happening, you don’t notice. You’re blinded by the amazing feeling you get when you talk to them. You’re in love with the time taken up by them.  You want nothing more than to spend every second with them, and when you do, you’re incredibly happy, so surely nothing could be wrong, right? Wrong.

 

While you’re in the moment, you don’t see it happening. You say things like “you’re my whole world” but it doesn’t hit you that you’ve just said that that person means more to you than God. You say things like “I need you”, not realizing you’ve started depending on this person for things you should depend on God for. You think you’re still cool with God. You don’t see that you’ve started forgetting to pray before bed because instead you fall asleep on the phone talking to this person. You don’t see that you’ve stopped truly worshiping God because when you sing about true love, you think about that person instead of God.

 

But since you’re both human, this relationship will inevitably fail. Even if you end up married and live “happily ever after”, the relationship will have failures. You will have disagreements. Your heart will be broken. And since you’ve based your whole life around this person, when that happens, it’s not just your heart that’s broken. It’s your identity. You don’t know who you are anymore, because who you think you are isn’t speaking to you, or just lied to you, or cheated on you, or whatever.

 

God is the only one you can count on 100%. God is the only one that will never fail. God is the only one you can base your identity around and know that it will always stand strong. While strong, meaningful human relationships are definitely important, it’s even more important to keep those relationships in check. Letting someone come between you and God is a terrible tragedy, and it can take years to recover from. It can take years to even realize what has happened. So please, I beg you. Fall in love. Meet your soul mate. Get married and live happily ever after. But for your own good, don’t ever let that person become your idol. Don’t ever let anything come between you and your Creator, your Father, your Savior. Never.

Reviews

[SleeplessVolcano]

Mmmmmm.....fantastic wisdom here......we often do not realise the existence of an idol until its too late.....my little "sign" is what song plays in my head when I wake up - a song glorifying God, or one glorifying life or humans? nothing necessarily wrong with secular music, but if we find more expression in romantic love songs compared to those glorifying God.....our priorities might have shifted.....

Great writing! :)

[Justin]

that was really good :) it is something that you can turn int a story :) great job :)