Idols Of Fear

     Chapter 32 of Exodus speaks of the time in the desert when the Israelites were waiting for Moses to come back down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments. When the people had been given the commandments verbally they had said “With one voice” that they would obey the Lord and worship no false gods or foreign idols. They had seen time and again glorious displays of God’s might and power. But, Moses had been gone for 40 days and they were getting restless and scared. They began to lose their faith. They began to believe that Moses wasn’t coming back and that God had left them.  So, they fell back to their ‘old’ ways. Ways of comfort that just felt naturally right to them.
     They told Aaron to make them a golden calf from melted down jewelry and gold that they could worship. When I read this my immediate response is to judge them. How could they witness such deliverance out of the hand of Pharaoh and be so quick to doubt? How could they witness the parting of the Red Sea and the glory of God’s presence and turn their backs on Him to seek false gods? How could they so quickly turn away from the true and living God to idols?
     But, when we ask the Lord to show us how something like this applies to our own lives, rest assured that He will! I immediately saw that there are times when He moves back from us. He is, of course, as near as ever, but we cannot feel Him. We may feel that our prayers are bouncing back to us like an undeliverable email. He waits. What will we do? Will we continue to remember Him in His glory? Will we continue in faith regardless of what the moment looks like?
     It is in our ‘old’ human nature to fill the void with something, actually almost anything. When we feel far away from Him, or that He is far away from us it can lead to deep discouragement and sometimes, full out panic. Think about it; The Israelites had been in slavery for 400 years in Egypt. They had been absorbed into a culture that reveled in its false gods. There were so many little man-made gods for every need and occasion. Living in this culture of iconic-idolism had become second nature to them, it felt natural. Even though they had just sworn allegiance to the one true God, they let their flesh and their fears take over as they began to ask themselves “where is God, where is Moses?”
    How easy it is to do that when God feels far away, when we don’t feel Him, or can’t ‘see’ the answer coming down the mountain for us. We become desperate to fill the void. The panic sets in as we let flesh and fear rule. We find ourselves seeking human solutions when the answers don’t feel like they’re coming quickly enough. We begin dashing about in our own strength trying to fix things. And far too often we look to other sources, little idols if you will, for our wisdom and comfort and for our help.
     It may be subtle at first, but the more our fears stir within us the less we can behold the power and cloak of His glory upon the mountain. He wants to see what we will do when these times come. His heart’s desire is that we stand in faith and trust. To continue to worship only Him and to not seek out other ‘easier’ solutions to our worries.  His desire is that we not wear ourselves out in fruitless attempts to fix things ourselves, this usually only makes everything that much worse. He asks us that we use no substitutions, no matter how innocent they may seem.
     Israel’s idol worship of the golden calf was blatant, shockingly ungrateful and disobedient. But, there are many kinds of idols. There are many subtle ways to replace God in moments of fear and weakness, when we just cannot feel His presence. Satan doesn’t just work in broad strokes. He is a master of subterfuge. He coaxes, and calls out that we have been abandoned, or even that we, in our sin, have done something so terrible that God will not hear us. Our culture invites us in, it says we don’t need God, nor do we need to ‘wait on Him’. There is so much more than Him out there to be had, to be relied upon.
      We would never melt our jewelry down to make an idol, but we can easily let the enemy melt our resolve to stand fast down.  We would not physically bow down to a ‘thing’, but our restless spirits can so easily bow to the pressures that surround us.
   Jesus says; “Enter my rest and trust me. Have faith that I will never leave you or forsake you, for I always know the best way out.” When we rest and wait and hold on it pleases the Father’s heart. He loves to joyously reward His obedient children. Oh, what blessings we can miss by not sitting still and waiting. Whether we like it or not we are steeped in our culture too. The question is; how will we chose to respond to the lonely places when we find ourselves waiting at the foot of the mountain?

Tonya Willman ©2010