God and...

I'm currently going through a summer virtual Bible study on the book of Judges. If you're looking for an inspirational book of the Bible, I wouldn't recommend Judges. The Judges cycle is several hundred years of the Israelites repeatedly doing whatever they want, getting themselves into trouble, doing the "I'm sorry!" song and dance, and God sending a judge to save his people, bringing peace to the land. Each cycle gets worse and worse, not only with the level of rebellion, but the oppression is greater, the judges are more flawed, and peace comes at a greater cost.

One of the prevailing themes I'm seeing throughout this book is the people's insistence of "God and...". The Israelites were given specific instructions on how to live, and they instead decided that they would co-exist with the world. Behavioral patterns of inconsistency and blatant disobedience were magnified with each generation. Commitment was replaced with complacency and later compromise. By failing to obey, they essentially failed to remember who God was, and in particular His covenant with His people.

Over time, the saving acts of God were no longer precious to the people. The God who had rescued them from Egypt, parted the waters (twice), and leveled Jericho with trumpets was all but forgotten. The world view of the day was that there were many gods, each of whom had a particular area of influence. So based on your interests and needs, you could mix and match which gods to serve at that time, which ultimately puts the person as sovereign and in control. The greatest danger here, to quote Tim Keller is "not atheism, but that we ask God to co-exist with our idols." God and...

God and social media

God and career

God and friends

God and family

God and possessions

God and leisure time

God and success

God and perception

God and people-pleasing

God and control

Sure, everyone gets the big picture here. But as I dug into this lesson this week, I started digging deeper into areas where I don't even want to admit co-existence. Areas where it is much easier for me to pretend that I only sacrifice my relationship with God some of the time. Areas where I can justify massive amounts of time enveloped in other activities because I might internally decide that I have the ability to not let whatever it is I'm doing affect my thinking or my behavior.

God and GOT

God and Netflix/Facebook/Instagram/LinkedIn

God and exercise

God and being angry at situations, circumstances, or people

God and my job

In The Message of Judges, Michael Wilcock sums it up well. "The gods [today] have not changed, for human nature has not changed, and these are the gods that humanity regularly re-creates for itself. What does it want? If it is modest - security and comfort and reasonable enjoyment. If ambitious - power and wealth and unbridled self-indulgence. In every age there are forces at work which promise to meet our desires - whether political, economic theories, career options, philosophies, lifestyle choices, entertainment - all having one feature in common. They promise that they can make our lives better than we can make them ourselves, yet at the same time they appear amenable to our manipulating them so we can get what we want without losing our independence... here is the enemy among us. We say we worship the Lord... but the world has crept in and controls our heart."

I have recognized that although I know truths about God, over time it can lose the impact on my heart. When I know truths but don't see or hear or feel them, other idols become more real to me and I have a tendency to serve them instead. I haven't abandoned God for idols. Instead, I have combined my worship of God with idols. I worship God formally, but if I'm not extremely intentional, my life revolves around all the other idols. How broken that is! And how ridiculously foolish to I think I have everything under control!

The reality is that I am not to try and use God to get what I want. Treating him like the other idols in my life is fundamentally flawed. God should be the The One that I desire. On a practical level what does this look like for me? It means I didn't finish Season 1 of GOT. It means I check LinkedIn and email after my morning quiet time and not the first thing when I wake up or the last thing before I go to bed. It means that I actively note the time when I log onto social media because I know how easy it is to spend hours being mesmerized by meticulously planned messaging.

Throughout Judges the only heroism that lies in the judges God appoints is in the way they trust God to work for, in, and through them despite their flaws, using them in His grace to rescue equally flawed people. I am glad that same principle applies to me - God's grace has saved me from the idols of my heart. His truth is available to me all the time and is the only thing that actually fulfills my desires without manipulation. May my desire to pursue truth and light be stronger than my desire other worldly things.