Yesterday our pastor preached on Daniel 3:1-8, 13-18. This is the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. During the sermon Pastor Spargo touched on the fact that these 3 guys were going to stay devoted to God wether or not He saved them from the furnace. I thought wow, I want to be devoted like that. In the sermon outline there was one last point which read, the idol I bow down to is called:(blank). I thought this is where we would take time and search our hearts to find what we bow our knee to. No, Pastor Spargo did it for us and hit the nail right on the head.
The idol I bow down to is called: ME. OUCH!! At first I thought how dare he say that. Then the Lord opened my eyes to how true it is. When things are going great and there is no trouble in my life I am completely devoted to the Lord. When things start to go wrong or not my way I bow my knee to the golden idol of myself and become to devoted to me. I become so self-centered and whiney. I start to throw pitty parties and wonder where is God in all of this. Why is He doing this to Me. When instead I should be seeking Him out for strength and become even more devoted to Him. I do seek out the Lord, but is to yell at Him and throw a fit. Now there is a time for that, and I feel it is ok to yell and scream and ask why, but I don't stop there. I wollow in selfishness.
As a matter of fact it happened this weekend. I let one little situation darken what could have been an awesomly fun weekend. I let circumstances get the better of me and take my focus off of my Heavenly Father. I was whiney and ugly, and I let that spue out onto others. So, the Lord has really been showing me alot in the past 24 hours. Which praise His name that with a repenting heart I can go to Him and confess and He will love me and wipe me clean as snow.
Thank you Father for showing me the idol I kept hidden. My goal is to stay devoted to Him no matter what. Friends and family will let me down and money won't always be there, but He will be. That is so comforting to know because I have felt so alone the past few days. I am glad this is out in the open because know I can focus and bow my knee to the Lord. I know I won't always get it and I will definitely bow to myself again, but it is so comforting to know that my Father is there and He loves me and He alone will get me through it.
3 comments:
Thank you so much for sharing your heart. Bailey and I have talked about "meism" a lot. It is so true that we so often become our own idol. Everything around us tells us to put ourselves first and God tells us to love the Him first then our neighbor. He doesn't even mention ourselves in the love line up. I will be praying for you are you bow to The Lord Your God as he does love you no matter what you do. Thanks again for sharing!!! It's so easy to get side tracked and you reminded me of who should be my priority.
Oh friend, thank you for opening your heart. I am thankful to GOd for showing you this in your life, and thankful that you allowed God to us you to shine that same light into other's lives. I am again reminded of 2 Cor 12:9 & 10b - But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness..." when I am weak then I am strong.
I know what you mean. This point hit me in the face a few years ago when I heard a preacher preach about martyrs. The point was if we are always saying how bad we have it and how humbel we are we are still always talking about OURSELVES. This was deffinataly a word in due season Dori. Thank you for reminding me.
H
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