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.

Following The Rules- My Messy Beautiful

I used to think life had a formula, x+y= success. So if I could just figure out what x and y were, I'd have everything I wanted and live a pain free and joy filled life. I don't know if you've ever taken Algebra, but solving for x and y seems to be an endless and impossible task!

I began thinking this way after my first major heartbreak. You know that first love that absolutely takes over your world? You are elated and terrified all at the same time because you've never been so happy and you're afraid of what will happen if that feeling goes away. And then, it does. And when heartbreak comes we have two choices; we can sit in our pain, feel it to the depths of our soul and slowly allow healing to come or we can close ourselves off from feeling at all, making sure we never feel pain again, or anything else for that matter. The choice I made was the latter. I built up a strong fortress around myself so that no one else could hurt me. I came up with a list of rules for any potential suitors, rules that were impossible, rules that were never meant for human relationship, rules that would lead to my next heartbreak...

I followed the rules and my world came crashing down. And through the wreckage I began to see that life in it's most beautiful state is messy and unorganized and not at all what I expected.

I followed my rules to an engagement. An engagement to the wrong person. Unfortunately, one of my rules was that you could not break off an engagement. In breaking my rules I learned about true grace. I learned that it's ok to be flawed and messy. I learned to sit in my pain, in my confusion and doubt and wait for the crashing waves to grow smaller and smaller and finally recede. I learned to love and be loved. I learned to forgive. I learned to be ok with unanswered questions and that I didn't have to have all the answers.

I wanted to be pleasing to God and to others and so I defined that role myself. But at the end of the day all God wants from me is me. He wants my messy, overly critical, insecure, too quick to speak self. He doesn't want me to clean myself up, that's His job. He doesn't want perfection, He doesn't need it and knows it's not possible. And at the end of the day others don't want my perfection either. They want to see my humanity. They want to know that they aren't the only ones who struggle, who fail over and over again, who doubt, who hurt and hurt others. They want me to be human with them.

And isn't it what we all want at our core? To be known and loved anyways. To be seen for your true self and still thought that you're beautiful? To be able to reveal the ugliest parts of your soul and still be embraced? It's in this place that I find my messy beautiful.