“Of what value is an idol?” (Habakkuk 2:18, NIV)
You either know the names or you don’t. I won’t bring them up again here. In recent weeks, though, we have seen on several occasions the tantrums of tour professionals. It’s ugly, and well beneath those whom we want to uphold as champions of the game.
But competition does something to athletes. It puts them on a razor’s edge. In a crisis of unmet expectation—if only for a wedge from a hundred yards out—they will either keep their narrow footing or crash in abject spectacle. Indeed, you might say that competition is to an athlete what children are to a parent. They stand as endangerments to our dignity. One false move and we too become authors of an embarrassing scene in which we play the leading role.
In truth, we are experts at setting ourselves up for your garden variety “bad look.” And this may be no more evident than when we start erecting idols.
What is an idol? This is a good place to start. It is possible your mind conjures up simultaneous images—one rigid and golden, the other singing richly on a spotlit stage. One is dead, the other living, yet both are images of our own making.
He is Yahweh, the Ancient of Days. He does not change like shifting shadows.The golden idol, we know, is only handmade. It may not even be golden. Habakkuk’s prophetic question recorded above is actually incomplete. Here is its entirety: “Of what value is an idol carved by a craftsman?” Something made by human hands is worshiped not as symbol of some god but as the god itself. Its worth is only in our mind. In this way, the singing idol before the cheering crowd is no different. The singer’s value rides on the appraisal of her fans. Tomorrow they may turn.
Of course, we know the one who will not turn. He is Yahweh, the Ancient of Days. He does not change like shifting shadows, James wrote. Which in our context means something very powerful: You are in no way less than when God made you, forming you in your mother’s womb, crafting you for a life that in righteousness can shine like stars in a darkened world.
And this, dear brother, dear sister, is why idolatry is so beneath you.
The God of all wisdom and power has made you to be his own. And you in turn have made something less than you—a creation of your own—to worship.
“He who makes [an idol],” the Lord spoke through Habakkuk, “trusts in his own creation.” It’s silly, I know, yet we do it all the time. We hold up athletes and actors, billionaires and gurus. We laud them as though they can give us something that God cannot. We do the same with earthly possessions. We turn our eyes and hearts and minds in their unfulfilling direction and expect them to fill us anyway. It’s an action to our loss and to our shame.
“The Lord is in his holy temple,” God concluded to Habakkuk. “Let all the earth be silent before him.” In other words, you do well to hush, child. Say nothing lest you say something beneath you. Look up and say nothing, nothing until your lips cannot contain their praise.
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Jeff Hopper
March 5, 2019
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.