The Deeper Idol

"One of the signs that an object is functioning as an idol is that fear becomes one of the chief characteristics of life. When we center our lives on the idol, we become dependent on it. If our counterfeit god is threatened in any way, our response is complete panic." Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods

You never know what is at the center of your heart until you risk losing it. And you think you know, at least you know what should be there, until you face a great loss. But the one who should be at the center, could never be lost.

The temptation will always be there, to allow something mortal, temporary and completely unable to fill the void in that space. All of us are tempted in different ways and perhaps in all of them throughout different seasons. We try to fill it without even knowing it. We believe that love, money, power or success can give us what we so desperately need; to feel whole, loved, and accepted.
There is One who can fill that space, who can fill our whole being to overflowing if we'll but clear the way.

Clearing the way is often painful. It involves digging up deep rooted idols. But we will never know how fully we could be filled until we allow for this. We will never be able to properly appreciate all that we have until we put it in its proper place. We can actually love more completely when we ourselves are filled with God's love but He has to be given His proper place in order to do this. No person or thing can fill you and attempting to let them only places a pressure on them that they will never be able to bear.

Our expectations were created to be met by God. God who is whole, pure, holy, righteous, love. No person or thing can ever be all those things perfectly and they were not meant to be. This is the place that God is meant to occupy. I wish that I could have seen without having to experience great loss, that my hands had been open, that my grip had been loose on it's own. But I clung to that which I believed would meet my needs, the need to feel validated, appreciated, seen.  The struggle won't go away, it will be a lifelong process but hopefully we learn to cling more and more to that which can truly satisfy, what our hearts long for.


 God in His kindness, looses the deeper idols of our hearts to fill them with Himself. We are reminded like Hagar, abandoned by all she had placed her hope in, that God, "El Roi" is the God who sees us. He hears us, rescues us, loves us completely. And it's not that relationships and things are not good, but they are not meant to be possessed or to possess us and can only be truly appreciated when they are seen as gifts from the one who can complete us. His to give and His, in sovereign goodness, to take away.

He is the one thing. The one that we are searching for. His presence, His love, mercy and grace can never be taken from us and so rightly ought to occupy the first place in our hearts.

I'm still learning this, like literally, at this moment. Actually, though I've heard teachings on it and read about it many times before, this is the first time I really get it. I think I cognitively understood it before but now my heart is resonating and I actually feel the empty space, the temptation to fill it with a myriad of things and the incredible and persistent drawing of the Lord to press in and give him his rightful place in my heart. There is more to behold, more of my heart to be cleared and more to be possessed by Him.

"Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God's love for them." Jonah 2:8
May we, with open hands, turn our hearts towards His love.