Top 10 Idols

 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;  you shall have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:2-3

“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  This is the greatest and first commandment. Matthew 22:38

 

Anyone who has experienced God’s Love for real, will know well enough to stay away from any idols that deny the Truth that God who created us all and everything that exists, revealed Himself fully to all humankind in the Person of His Son Jesus Christ. Idols that look like idols are easy enough to avoid. I hope you know that Sachin Tendulkar may be called the ‘God of cricket’ but he is no god at all.

But I have fallen for the trap myself and witnessed other people falling too, for idols that are really too good to resist! Here’s my list of top 10 idols to beware of!

 

1.     A romantic partner

My first and last boyfriend who later became my first and last husband was perhaps the most destructive idol I have ever worshipped. That’s because he’s a really good guy and he loved/loves me very much. Long past that early love stage and the early years of marriage, my number one priority in life was still him. And when I finally experienced the love of God for myself, for real, I realised how badly I had sinned by putting my darling husband first. God Himself had selected my husband for me and given him to me as a key relationship that would channel God’s love for me. But I had made my husband the number one person in my life, giving him the place that rightfully belonged to God alone. Not only I had sinned against God, I had unintentionally put a tremendous strain on my husband because the poor guy had no leeway to be human and do any wrong in my eyes.  

 

In a very painful act of surrender, I had to take my husband off the pedestal I had made for him and give him second place in my life. And that act of will allowed God to open the door and begin saving our marriage from us and other destructive beliefs we had.

 

2.     Your vocation

Whether, you are a priest, nun, religious, single or married and parenting, it is very easy to focus so much on this very important part of your life, that it becomes who you primarily are, your core identity. However, your true core identity is being a child of God. No matter what state of life you are in, even if you are separated, divorced, widowed, half way out of the priesthood or religious life, in a long-term relationship that doesn’t seem to be heading towards marriage- first and foremostly, you are a child of God. Don’t let your secondary vocation become your primary vocation.

 

3.     Children

From the day I first began dreaming about being a mother, to the day I held my first child in my arms, roughly 2 decades had passed by. In those 20 years, I pursued an education and career working with children and desperately longed for the day when I would no longer be called only aunta/teacher/miss/ godma but ‘mama’. But right before our first child came home, I remember praying very clearly for two things: (a) for the grace to be grateful for this shot at motherhood all the days of my life and (b) for the grace to never let my children become an idol to me. God has answered both prayers for 11 years straight. There were moments that I came pretty close, in desperation, to prioritising my children over my relationship with God, but God stopped me just in time.

 

4.     Parental figures/mentors

There are some people in our lives who are so easy to idolize because they really have had such a nurturing, life giving, positive influence on us. It becomes very difficult to see them as being human beings first, capable of having their own flaws and frailties. And if such a person were to then disappoint us or deceive us, it could be heart-breaking and gut-wrenching. That’s a good time to remember that only God can be and is perfectly good all the time. Especially if the predominant culture around you teaches that ‘parents are God in human form’, it needs grace to respect each human beings right to be wrong and trust not in horses and chariots but in God alone.

 

5.     Health

While disciples agree that wealth should never be number 1 in your life, many disagree about health. Cherishing and caring for the health that God gives us to make the best use of our time on earth is one thing, but pursuing perfect health, diets, exercises or anything else as your top most priority in life is hugely detrimental. The day will come when irrespective of how well we have cared for our health, our bodies and minds will fail us and maybe then, we may not have the requisite consciousness to make an act of will and put God first.

 

6.     Ministry

God has given me 99.99 percent of my key relationships in the context of church ministry. I know how easy it is to get life satisfaction, a sense of wellbeing, purpose and satisfying fellowship through ministry. Even if there is no pay or honour involved, it is very easy to confuse serving God with relating to God, even though they are very distinct. Prioritising serving God over your actual relationship with God is a slippery slope that can soon lead to corruption in finances, sexual immorality, and soon functioning like an NGO rather than like His Church.

Prioritizing God first and allowing only Him to appoint you, dismiss you, promote or demote you, change your department, your skills or direction, requires a tremendous grace to be obedient. God might take you through lots of ups and downs in ministry simply to ensure you stay on the narrow path. Even if ministry friends stray off the path, stay focussed on God.  

 

7.     Your public image/reputation

In the age of social media and communication, we live extraordinarily public lives. It seems we have to keep in touch with everyone from every educational and employment alumni, just to keep up with the social expectations of what it takes to maintain cordial relationships and be accessible to every relative, acquaintance and colleague across the globe. This is not just an unnecessary, unnatural burden to carry but can easily become an idol. Wanting to look good/appear well/seem successful to everyone all the time is deceitful. Expecting others to always speak well of you behind your back is unrealistic.  You can’t please everyone all the time. You can’t control what others think or say about you. And the fact that you want others to think well of you, can become a idol that causes you to make decisions that you know God will not approve of. In essence, it should not matter how many people ‘like’ me because I know that God already loves me.

 

 

8.     Work/Hobbies

Because work can give us wealth, honour, and a deep sense of purpose and fulfilment, it’s very obvious that it can become an idol. “He’s a workaholic” means he worships work. God created work before the fall of Adam and Eve as something inherently good but after the fall it enslaved them. Besides being known for their work, some take great pride in being known for their pursuits with a sport or music or something that sets them a up a foot taller than everyone else. Very easily, you can lose your identity as a child of God and your relationship with Him.

 

 

9.     Old loyalties

Some childhood friendships, some people who were there for us early in our careers or in the worst of times, can be very hard to disregard for the sake of God. It feels wrong to upset them and we tell ourselves that its ok and God will understand when we make compromises on His laws just to avoid fracturing these old loyalties. No one can be more faithful a friend than Jesus Himself.

 

10.  God Himself

Yes, you read that right. God has commanded us to keep Him number one on every list in our lives because He created us, died for us and redeemed us into a right relationship with Him. But we can easily get distracted and treat the LIVING GOD just like a statue/idol: dust him off when we need to use him, put him away out of sight when we need to watch TV or go out with friends. Don’t reduce an all-loving, right relationship with God to a transactional relationship where you give what He requires so that you get what you want in the short term only to lose the most important Person and relationship you can ever have in the long term.

 

Only God can be God.

It doesn’t matter how good someone/something is, how important that is is to you, how beneficial it is to you or your loved ones.

Only God can be God.

Don’t replace Him with anything else.

No matter what is, it does not deserve the number one place in your life.

Only God can be God.