Idols

I have been reading through Jeremiah and Isaiah over the past couple of months.  I thought they would be depressing judgements of God but in reality, they are filled with messages of hope and redemption.  I have caught myself laughing at the way God communicates to His people.  The pictures He makes with His words are often humorous while being painfully accurate.  I also thought that the ancient Israeli kingdoms were taken into captivity because of their many grievous sins against God.  But as I have poured over these scriptures, I have realized that the most grievous sin committed against God by Israel was idolatry.

Idolatry is defined by dictionary.com as “excessive or blind adoration [of any person or thing].”  Jeremiah and Isaiah spend most of their time calling God’s people to turn away from the objects of their worship and come back to the One true God. And God told His people exactly how He felt about them looking for other sources of salvation or hope.  In the entire first part of Jeremiah, He calls His own people whores because they are chasing after so many other gods.

One of my favorite chapters is Isaiah 44.  It’s like God doing a cosmic face palm.

[The carpenter] cut down cedars,
    or perhaps took a cypress or oak.
He let it grow among the trees of the forest,
    or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow.
It is used as fuel for burning;
    some of it he takes and warms himself,
    he kindles a fire and bakes bread.
But he also fashions a god and worships it;
    he makes an idol and bows down to it.
Half of the wood he burns in the fire;
    over it he prepares his meal,
    he roasts his meat and eats his fill.
He also warms himself and says,
    “Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.”

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!”
They know nothing, they understand nothing;
    their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see,
    and their minds closed so they cannot understand.
No one stops to think,
    no one has the knowledge or understanding to say,
“Half of it I used for fuel;
    I even baked bread over its coals,
    I roasted meat and I ate.
Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left?
    Shall I bow down to a block of wood?”  Isaiah 44:14-19

And these books make me think about the idols in my own life.  I’m not talking about family or possessions or all the normal “church” answers.  I’m talking about real, day to day objects that are your focus of excessive adoration.  Right now, for me, that’s a video game.  Go ahead and laugh, I’m appalled to admit it myself. 

“Dear Jesus, I would rather play this searching for missing objects game for 8 hours a day than spend time in your Word and talk with you in intimate conversation.  That’s how much Your sacrifice means to me.“ 

Ouch, that hurts.

So how did this silly little game become such a big deal to me?  I’m a stay-at-home Mom now.  And as much as I love being available emotionally to my family each night, I have a hard time staying motivated to do housework. When can I ever really say that I have finished the dishes or laundry or cleaning the living room? Never.  I never finish anything.  But this little game, it gives me a since of accomplishment.  I can finish one quest or a series of quests and I never have to do it again.  It is completed.  So, instead of turning to God for Him to show me how He meets my need to have something finished, I have turned to this little idol.

One of the other life lessons that God has shown me through these books is that idolatry was the real reason we had to leave Vienna.  Our ministry had become our god.  We spent every waking moment, and many sleeping ones, dwelling on what we could do through our ministry to save the world.  We totally left God out of the equation.  So the One true God ripped our ministry, our idol, our god away from us so that our focus would return to Him.  It is painful to admit that we had misplaced our focus; our ministry really can’t save anyone, only Jesus can do that.  But, sadly, I think many ministers and missionaries would come to the same conclusion if they only had the time to be still before the Lord instead of hanging around with their idols so much.

So how do you know when something has become an idol in your life?  You should ask the Holy Spirit to show you what you blindly adore.  This could be something you have carried with you most of your life, something that has only recently surfaced or even something that is ingrained in your culture. Here is what He showed me. 

This object may be my god if:

• I think about it or talk about it all day long.
• I dream about it.
• I get upset when someone says bad things about it or has different ideas than I do about it.
• I have intense pride when someone compliments my object.
• I am almost distraught when I can’t be with it or when someone else has it.
• I am willing to sacrifice important things I need to survive to be with it i.e. eating, drinking, recovering from sickness, sleep, etc.
• I try to get all the other people I know to make it important in their lives, too. 
• And I get upset when they don’t make it important.
• I have an intense emotional attachment to it.

There may be other cues in your own life that the Spirit will show you.  Ask Him, but be aware that there are consequences for asking this question.  Leaving a video game behind has been far less painful than leaving Vienna, but it’s still a challenge each day to stay away from it. 

The Spirit has filled my heart with more of Him to take the place of my idol.  I have a greater desire to read His Word, which is fantastic, and an intense desire to write.  I love to write, but honestly, some of the things He asks me to write about are difficult, and they make me quite vulnerable.  On the other hand, He has given me something to make me feel accomplished.  Each time I post another blog, I take a deep breath and say, “That’s finished.”

Home for the Holidays

It’s cloudy outside and my Austrian conditioned body immediately thinks it’s cold.  I check the weather. Nope. 72 F (22 C).  It is too warm for the middle of November.  I head out the door in my August clothes, open-toed sandals and all, to go to the grocery store in my car.  I take the agonizingly long 5 minute drive to the store, grab my extra huge basket that doesn’t require a coin deposit and head into the store that’s larger than all 3 of my neighborhood stores in Vienna combined.  It’s been a hard day, cloudy ones always are.  I’m not sure if that’s because of a natural human disposition toward depression on cloudy days or because cloudy days remind me of Vienna.

As I take the first turn down an aisle in the store, I’m bombarded by holiday decorations - Thanksgiving on one side, Christmas on the other.  Ugh, my day just got worse.  I do not even want to think about the upcoming holidays.  They are looming ominously in front of me, and I know I can’t avoid dealing with them much longer, but I’m trying to put them out of my mind as long as possible.  It’s easier when it still feels like summer outside.

It will be our first Thanksgiving and Christmas back “home,” away from “home.” 

If you’ve ever lived in a culture other than your home culture, I know you get me.  And everyone else is saying “What? Aren’t you thankful to be with your family this year?”  And the short answer to that question is “Yes.” But there is a longer, more complicated answer which lies at the heart of how I feel about the upcoming holiday celebrations.

We are grateful to spend time with our family this year.  It has been five years since we spent Thanksgiving and Christmas together. Unfortunately, that’s part of the extra stressors that will add to our holiday celebrations. We are not the same people that we were five years ago.  We have changed.  The different life experiences that we have had over the past few years have made us into the people we are today.  Before we moved to Austria, we felt like our families didn’t really understand all of our quirks and nuances sometimes.  We are at a whole new level of strange now.  

And our families have changed, too.  When you live overseas, it’s often difficult to keep up with all the “little” developments that are shaping your families back home.  How do you really know a person you see a few days every two years?  So our families will be different, too.  We need to understand how to accept them as the people they are now instead of how we expect them to be based on a five year old opinion.  The entire celebration may end up being as awkward as a junior high dance as we try to decide the best way to approach each other without tripping over our own insecurities.

On my side, the family doesn’t even look the same.  We’ve added a member, and we’re missing another. This will be the first time my family has celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas together since my Dad died in 2013.  It’s going to be tough.  Everyone will have raw emotions and tender hearts.  The things that cause grief are often small and unexpected so you can’t really prepare for what’s going to tug at your heart strings in that moment.  We will have to give each other permission to cry and laugh and talk about Dad and leave the room if we need to and get angry and still love each other.  This holiday season is part of healing, and dealing with the grief of missing someone you love is not easy.

Then, there’s the grief my little Austrian – American family will be experiencing on a totally different plane that our extended families may not be able to understand no matter how hard they try.  We are also mourning the loss of our International family and our Austrian holiday traditions while trying to redefine what it means to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas back in America.

The first year we were in Austria was the first time we had ever celebrated these holidays without our families.  We didn’t have any of our own traditions, and we hadn’t built strong enough relationships with people in Vienna at that point to share the holidays with them. But, over time, we figured out how to “do” Thanksgiving and Christmas with our overseas family and make it a special time.  Many of those traditions won’t transfer to life in America so this year will be very similar to our first year in Vienna. 

We can watch football on Thanksgiving Day.  But it won’t compare to the almost palpable excitement of watching the only American football game of the year we were actually awake to see in real time blown up to life size proportions in the MPR.  Being surrounded by our family will be wonderful.  But we will miss our huge, chaotic group of spiritual brothers and sisters from around the world and a slightly smaller, intimate group of our closest friends who walked with us through those days last year when we didn’t even know if we wanted to breathe. We will put up a Christmas tree.  But the ornaments representing the different stages of our life are still in a box on another continent. We can make Christmas cookies and even open Advent calendars – thank you World Market.  But we won’t be able to visit our favorite Christkindl Markt, drink our favorite Punsch, or eat Krapfen the size of our heads. We will open gifts on Christmas morning, but we won’t have Aunt Marci’s cinnamon rolls for breakfast.  And we can ring in the New Year.  But we won’t be watching the sky explode in showers of color from the river near downtown.  Or dancing the salsa with our friends until the wee hours of the morning.  We will grieve the loss of these traditions and many others; it’s a normal part of dealing with change. And the grief from not experiencing those traditions may manifest itself in ways that are not expected and are not easily explained.

As I push my basket down the grocery store aisle, away from any reminders of the coming season, I know that it’s the emotion and the pain that I really want to avoid rather than the holidays.  In my head, I know that grieving is a healthy, normal part of the healing process.  But in my heart, I also know that this Thanksgiving and Christmas are going to be extremely difficult and excruciatingly painful, not just for me, but for the people I care most about.  I am praying for strength and wisdom for this holiday season.  And also for open eyes, so that when pain manifests itself in angry outbursts, hurtful words, and disobedient behavior that I will see the pain rather than the behavior and show compassion on the one that is hurting.  Finally, I am praying that I will learn to be grateful for what seems like a miserable situation.  While many people in the world have no home, I have two, and that makes me doubly fortunate.

Opening the Window

I have been heartbroken for months about the influx of refugees from the Middle East into Europe. They are cold, hopeless, hurting and have nowhere to go. I ache when one more country puts up fences and other countries forbid safe passage or asylum.  I thought that I may be transferring my own feelings about being displaced onto this uprooted people group. But I realized this week, that my heart aches because of the lack of eternal awareness the Church has regarding this global event. 

For decades, we have heard the outpouring of concern in our churches for those who don’t know Jesus especially in the section of the world called the 10/40 Window. The Joshua Project defines “[t]he 10/40 Window [as] the rectangular area of North Africa, the Middle East and Asia approximately between 10 degrees north and 40 degrees north latitude.” (http://joshuaproject.net/resources/articles/10_40_window) The Western Church has mourned for this region because the greatest amount of people groups who have yet to hear the good news of Christ live in this “window” of the world.  It is also a region that is often torn by war and violence, where people have an intense religious devotion to false gods, and where traditional evangelical methods are difficult to implement.

In the past, God provided ways to get His salvation message to these people groups.  He has given us technology such as radio and satellite TV programs and streaming the Gospel message through the internet.  But, we have continued to pray that God would open up these nations to the Gospel.

Then, as is often the case, God did something we did not expect. God opened the 10/40 window and has sent her inhabitants to us!  The Church could not get in, so God is sending a flood of people out.  “Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past.  See [God is] doing a new thing! Now it springs up, do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:18-19a)  What a great opportunity that we did not anticipate!  What a glorious God we serve that He would hear our prayers and answer us!

However, instead of the Church being elated on a spiritual level to receive the lost and hurting of the world so that we may introduce them to our loving Savior, we have responded quite the opposite. We fuss about not having enough material resources to meet the needs of our own people much less an influx of “unwanted” people. We worry about the safety of our country.  We are wary of the intentions “those people” have for leaving their home country.

My brothers and sisters, let’s search the Scriptures and see what God says about our response.

1   

          We should be taking care of our own people before we take care of foreigners. – Why aren’t we doing both?  Our land is one of the richest in the world, that’s why people want to come here.

The psalmist encourages generosity throughout chapter 37:

“The wicked borrow and do not repay,
    but the righteous give generously;” vs. 21

“I was young and now I am old,
    yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken
    or their children begging bread.
They are always generous and lend freely;
    their children will be a blessing.” vs. 25-26

Even Christ Himself has commanded us to live generously so that our focus is eternally driven. Look what Jesus says in Luke 12:

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” vs. 32-34

God has given us the Kingdom, let us give generously from our temporal possessions so that our hearts can be focused on eternity. 

 Some of the “refugees” might actually be terrorists.  – Yes. However, God can use a terrorist who is changed by coming face to face with His Son.  Don’t scoff.  He has done it already. 

A young man named Saul, who was a religious fanatic, “began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison.” (Acts 8:3) He also had no qualms about killing Christians (Acts 8:1).  Saul was a terrorist.  Then he came face to face with Jesus who changed his life.  We see this change just one chapter later as Saul “began to preach in the synagogue that Jesus is the Son of God.” (Acts 9:20).

This former terrorist, who changed his name to Paul, became the first missionary to the non-Jews. His obedience to Jesus is why all of us in the West have access to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  God doesn’t change.  But the only thing that will change the heart of a terrorist, a person consumed with hatred is the love of Jesus Christ.  
 
 We could lose our Christian country to Islam.  - I think this response really means “I am afraid.” It is true, some who follow Islam desire the complete destruction of our country.  But we don’t have any reason to be afraid.  In Isaiah, the Lord cautions us to be wary of the opinions around us:

 “Do not call conspiracy
everything this people calls a conspiracy;
do not fear what they fear,
    and do not dread it.
The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy,
    he is the one you are to fear,
    he is the one you are to dread.” 8:12-13

   
      Again, in Luke 12, Jesus says we should not fear what can happen to us physically, rather we should fear the One that holds judgement over our eternal souls.

      “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do    no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” vs. 4-7
    
      As followers of Jesus, we have nothing left to fear.  Our Savior has conquered sin and death and given us abundant and eternal life.  Now we need to share this hope with these hurting, hopeless people who are not only fleeing their homes, but have been betrayed by their own religion.  Their religion of “peace” has brought them war and death.  They have nowhere to turn.  But we have the hope of Jesus, the Prince of Peace; this is our opportunity to share Him with them.

      We don’t know why “these people” are really leaving their country. – We are not able to judge a person’s heart condition.  Only God can do that.  We can only look into our own hearts and judge our own motives.  

In the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10, we aren’t told much about the man that is left in the ditch.  We know he was naked and beaten half to death (vs 30), but we don’t know his nationality, his religion, his educational level, or his economic standing.  He was a man in need, dying on the side of the road.  A couple of high standing, very religious Jews pass by him without doing anything. 

But then a third man comes by who is described by his nationality rather than his religion. He is a Samaritan.  Samaritans were known to worship false gods which were a mixture of Jewish tradition and other gods; they even established their own holy city.  Samaria harbored criminals and opposed the re-building of the temple in Jerusalem. (http://www.gotquestions.org/Samaritans.html) Does any of this sound familiar?

This Samaritan idolater has compassion on the man in the ditch.  He meets his immediate physical needs, provides a safe place for him to stay, pays for health care and living expenses and promises to come back and check on the man.  He had mercy on a man who probably hated him. At the end of the parable, Jesus says “Go and do likewise.” Luke 10:37b

Ask the Holy Spirit how He wants you to participate in showing mercy to these dying people.  Then, when He tells you what to do, do it.  The Spirit has told me that right now, I am to  mourn for the refugees and the Church in Europe, to cry out to the Father for their needs to be met and their hearts to be opened.  And I need to support and encourage my friends that are on the front lines in Austria and other European countries through my words, finances, and prayer.  And what you are reading is also something the Spirit has laid on my heart.  This is my current responsibility.  The Spirit will show you what to do if you ask.

God is doing a fantastic work; He has answered our prayers!  He expects His entire Body to participate in the work He is doing. If we do not move, countless souls will be condemned for all eternity to hell. Is my safety, my security, my stuff really worth one soul? Jesus had just gathered 72 of His disciples to send them out on a short-term mission trip in Luke 10, and this is what ^“He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (vs. 2) God is bringing the lost, the hopeless, the hurting to us.  Don’t miss the opportunity this generation has been given to be part of God’s eternal plan to bring salvation to lost and hurting people.



*I use BibleGateway (https://www.biblegateway.com) as a reference tool and to avoid typing huge chunks of Scripture.