April 29 | Jeremiah 10:1-16

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DAILY READING

Jeremiah 10: 1-16

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REFLECTION

What are Your Idols?

By Carmel Elmer

If you make your way through the Old Testament, it will become clear that the Israelites had a recurring, long-standing problem with idolatry. When Moses went up Mt. Sinai to receive the 10 commandments, the Hebrew people began to grow restless and it's as if they suddenly forgot that to this point, God had rescued them from 400 years of slavery, fed them, protected them, parted the Red Sea so they could cross it, and safely gotten them this far on their journey to the Promised Land. When they become restless and afraid, waiting for Moses to return, their first instinct is to abandon God and worship an idol instead, even crediting other gods with their rescue from Egypt.

Fast forward 800 years or so and Jeremiah enters the scene warning the people of Jerusalem and Judah to turn away from useless idols that they are again looking to for salvation and turn back to worship and obedience to God. Once again God’s people have allowed the influences around them to turn them from worshiping the true Living God to worshiping worthless idols and foreign gods.  You would think they would have learned by now!

It seems pretty foolish to worship a wooden carving or a silver statue and expect you will get what you want out of life, doesn’t it?  That may have been a problem for the people in ancient times, but we know better now…or do we.  I for one am convicted to think about the patterns of idolatry in my own life.  For me this is not an issue of worshiping things, but a problem of what I give my heart to and what I have thought would make me happy. 

Idols can be so many things, even good things if we allow them to take the place of God in our life.  It’s so easy to spend most of our lives looking to the next big thing and I can think of so many times in my life when I found myself thinking or even saying out loud, “When I (fill in the blank), I’ll have everything I need.”  I wanted the job, the husband, the kids, the happy home, and the funds for a comfortable retirement.  That’s what I needed to make me happy, and I see now how all too often the created things became more important to me than the Creator who gave me all I need and more.  Created things break, we lose the job, the people in our lives can disappoint us or completely let us down.  Over the last few years, I have been painfully reminded of a truth I had almost forgotten.

“He who is the Portion of Jacob is not like these, for He is the maker of all things, including Israel, the people of his inheritance - The Lord Almighty is His name.” vs 16

The choices we make and the priorities we base them on, have consequences, but God’s desire is to give us hope and restore us no matter how many times we turn our heart away from Him and give it to the idols in our lives.  The journey to get there can sometimes have us feeling like we are in exile just like the Israelites were in Babylon, but that time of “exile” can be where God does His best work. 

PRAYER

Help us in times when we give our hearts to created things rather than to You and we forget that without You, none of these things would exist. Let us never lose sight of where all goodness, all beauty, all love come from - from You The Lord Almighty, The One True God.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CARMEL ELMER

I have attended UALC for nearly 25 years, but faith has always been at the center of my life. My mom was an incredible role model, demonstrating a trust in God that surpassed any circumstance. I will always be grateful for her incredible example of faith, and I pray that one day, my children will say the same about me.