Fashioning Idols

It is surprising how easy we find it to fashion for ourselves something that we trust, perhaps sub-consciously, to give our lives meaning or purpose. Sadly, in reality, it’s a lie. In this passage in chapter 44, Isaiah, as a mouthpiece for God, is referring to a carved idol or ‘god’ that is constructed from the same log that is also used to make a fire to cook over. He is pointing to the obvious stupidity of worshipping and praying to something that they have made out of a block of wood – the same block that is also used just as fuel to keep a fire going!

But this word applies to anything in our lives that we allow ourselves to ‘idolize’. Perhaps subtly we end up elevating something or even someone to a place which effectively sits above our Heavenly Father in our lives. Is my busy-ness and long hours doing God’s work an idol? Does this good work become my defining objective? Maybe it is my family – my role as a father or mother which gives my life its value and purpose. Perhaps we make an idol of the pursuit of health and fitness – or the gathering of wealth to give me security.
But hope, purpose and security can never be found in the things we construct for ourselves. As declared in Isaiah 44:6, “This is what the LORD says – Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.”

Prayer: Father God, would you please reveal to me anything in my life which I may have elevated to be like an idol or a ‘god’. Help me to remove false idols and live in such a way that you alone are God in my life. Only then will I experience true hope, purpose and security.