Plain As the Nose On Your Face

Stop. Look around. Name a dozen things you can see right now — things that belong to you or that take up your time. Name them out loud.

At least one of them is probably your god.

How do I know? Let me answer by telling you about a conversation I had last week with Kevin Dial. Kevin is very involved at our church as a small group leader, a Stephen Minister, and a participant in short-term mission trips every summer. For the last several years, he has gone to Africa to train pastors and care for hurting people. Last week, we sat down for coffee and he told me about a woman he had met in Africa who is now living temporarily in the U.S. while she pursues an advanced degree. He told me that a mutual friend visited this lady's apartment and noticed that there were idols scattered all about — physical idols, I mean — literal wood and stone carved into images of worship. This lady is a follower of Jesus, but the spiritism of her homeland has mixed with her Christian faith to the extent that idols hang on the walls of her home to protect her, bless her, and guide her.

God is pretty serious about idolatry. The first commandment is, "Don't have any other gods before me." The second commandment is pretty much a reprise of the first, "Don't worship stuff you made." God says he's jealous of idols; he wants all of our worship for himself. Some of the most dramatic and terrifying punishments doled out in the history of God's people have come because of idolatry. So idols hanging on your walls is not something to mess around with. I don't know if my friend's friend said anything to this African sister about her idols, but what he did ask her revealed something about our ours — something that may be hard for us to see from the inside. In the course of the conversation, he asked,

"So do you have any interest in coming to live in America permanently?"

To which she answered,

"Oh no. I could never live here. Americans have too many idols."

Fascinating. What the American saw — literally staring at them from her living room wall — she was blind to. And what she saw — perhaps just as glaringly obvious to her — was invisible to the American. And that's a key element of idolatry. It's much easier to diagnose in someone else. We don't see our idols, because we're used to them. They are part of us. We don't see them in the same way we don't see our own noses or our own faults — not because they aren't real or close to us, but because they are too close to us, too common to stand out. The old saying about knowing something like the back of our hands is ironic, of course, because we never see the back of our hands. We look at them every day but we never see them.

So how do we avoid the trap of the old African lady? How can we see our idols? I think we need two things.

We need a mirror. Like seeing our own faces in a mirror, it's helpful to see ourselves reflected in some other vantage point. The scriptures are a mirror; we see ourselves in the pages, sometimes trailing a parade of idols.

We need a brother or sister. It was easy enough for the American to see that lady's idols. And it was easy enough for her to see his. Sometimes we need to ask our closest friends who we're really worshipping. And we need friends who love us enough to speak truth and not platitudes.

Our idols won't be made of wood or stone. They'll be more subtle than that, but no less dangerous. Matt Maher's song "Every Little Prison" describes a few.

From validating words that only seem to serve a heart that's proud;

And all my self esteem, dressed up in vanity and doubt;

From wondering if I am relevant and liked, O God,

Deliver me. 

One other thing about idols: we keep them close. The African lady lived with them. We seldom let them get too far from us. After all, if we're willing to lose them, they aren't idols. So when I asked you to look around and name the things around you — possessions, business cards with your title on them, photos of your pride and joy, your wallet, your Facebook feed — there was a good chance you named an idol.

We can't kill our idols until we identify them. When was the last time you looked for them? Who could help you see them?