“But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes but cannot see, noses but cannot smell. They have hands, but cannot feel, feet but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats. Those who make them will be like them and so will all who trust in them.” (Psalm 115:4-8 NIV)
We, as people, are prone to idolatry. As the psalmist says, we make them and we trust in them. It seems the outcome is the same for the idol creator and idol worshiper alike. Aaron suffered the same fate as the people prone before the golden calf.
Consider the idol: mute, blind, unsmelling, unfeeling, paralyzed and without so much as an ability to groan to alert the world to their suffering. I read the description of idols and the idol worshipers that will be made like the idols and I think of catatonic state: alive internally, able to think and feel pain but dead on the outside, utterly alone in individual suffering.
I once read a book about just such a boy and his existence sounded absolutely miserable. I, myself, have had dreams where my arms and legs and words simply won’t cooperate. Such a state is akin to suffocating in your own skin: unable to alter your situation by any degree, just suffering soundlessly.
The psalmist says this is the fate of both idol creators and congregants. When we bow before dead things, we become dead things ourselves.
Conversely, when we bow before the living, breathing God Almighty, we borrow a bit of His life for ourselves. We receive more and more from Him. The more we rely on Him, the more we receive from Him. Our flesh is redeemed and our future is full of life and hope and movement and voice. If hell is deadness then heaven is the fullest measure of alive we can possibly imagine.
We become like whatever we bow before.
I don’t know about you, but when these two options are laid out so plainly, for me, the choice is clear. I choose the living God, who, in turn, offers me life. I choose breathing and jumping and walking and talking and smelling and tasting. I choose a God who is actually capable of relationship, a God who comes close and even recreates.
“The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.” (John 10:10 NIV)
Lord, thank You for putting the choice so obviously before us. Help us see the difference between life and death, between Living God and idol. Help us choose wisely; with our words but also our thoughts and actions. May we consistently choose You and therefore choose life. Amen.