It is a daily surrender to the LORD’s feet of the many other altars I so willingly put up daily. Such a great human tendency of putting up for myself other altars where I worship many other idols than my God. My flesh selfishly desires to worship my own choosing of a god – people, things, behaviors, circumstances or anything that I would cover myself up with, thinking it would somehow satisfy. But to all these years, with all the other altars I made, nothing ever really satisfied like that of His.
Yet this fleshly desires still remain. My tendencies never died. Conscious or not, I still bow down to other idols apart from my God.
To my years of praying to solely be His, I still find myself falling into worshiping men, going round and round into my own world of romantic fantasies, arousing emotions and finding pleasure and release. Indeed, it is a human tendency to find a pleasurable release whenever we feel pain. And as to my experience, instead of going straight to the arms of my loving Father whenever I’m in pain, I go to my idols, to my own choosing of escape, to my own worship of selfish desires.
Idolatry is a worship of self. It chooses to worship what the self desires more than what God desires for us. And I’ve felt strongly that idolatry and addiction can never go apart from one another. Addiction is the continuous act of worship to our idols. Addiction is a cycle – it presents itself as pleasure, as an escape, as something worthwhile, as a reward. It desires to be the “one tap pleasure giver”, to be that instant release we desire at the moment we feel uneasy with pain or anxiety. It snatches us out of our original creation – to be God’s worshiper. It snatches us out of our walk in faith. It destroys our heart of worship. It covers up our pain, it snatches us out of the healing that is for us.
“…they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” Romans 1:25 ESV
God has entrusted us with wounds. He let His body be broken for the healing of His beloved people. And He let us be broken so that we could partake of the healing power He has powerfully done at the Cross. God has provided us a way to heal from our pain – not to patch wounds with cycles of addiction – but to tap on to the healing power of the pain He lets us go through. Being bare when we’re hurt and in pain, and not covering ourselves up with idols would mean for us that we will feel the gravity of the pain we wanted to detach with. But, God’s hands are capable of turning the wounds we never want to face to a redemptive kind of pain.
“‘For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal’, declares the Lord.” Jeremiah 30:17
I have shared with you from my last post the beauty of a healing community with my fellow wounded healer friends. The power of confessing sins and praying for one another cannot be denied. Authenticity is built in a life of confession and each of us in LW staff team has observed that as we go deeper and deeper in our confession, the lesser the hold of sin’s temptation against us. And I like what Andy Comiskey wrote as an encouragement in his book,
“Demonstrate your commitment to purity through action, not merely through another confession”.
There is a need for us to be committed to forsake daily the false gods no matter how strong they would continually tempt and haunt us.
Breaking the power of idols in our lives is not a one-time thing. It is a daily surrender and a daily humility right in front of the cross, tapping on to God’s power for love and salvation. It is a commitment to walk with God and with trusted others. The more we rely on God Himself, the more we regain our voice and our authority to say NO to sin.
Greatest breakthroughs come to life only through accessing the power of the Cross.
When I backtracked the very reason why I attached myself to my recent idol, I found myself in a very hard time being in that memory. It was because I was hurt. Even the thought of going back to that memory is devastating to me, much more putting words to it and sharing it to a friend. The pain was too real, I kept it for more than a month to myself and unconsciously attached myself to an idol just to make myself feel “okay”. But as I shared this thing with my friend, I tremendously felt I am never okay since the night I was hurt. The pain was still huge and big, not even a hint of it was healed by clinging on to my idol.
In my helpless arms and wounded self, I sought for help to the One who desires to be the Source of my all. I desired healing from the depths of my being no matter how painful the things I should face. In the light of my pain, in the Cross that I carry, in the thorn of my own flesh, I chose to follow the One I committed myself to follow no matter what.
Then I asked God, “If no love will satisfy like that of Yours, then I should be experiencing the greatest love of all, right?”
I smiled sweetly releasing bitter tears away. What great romance I have been missing out just because I am all out there preoccupied by my own romantic fantasies! I was trying to fit men in my fantasies and have myself sit in a corner, waiting for a savior, when in reality, all the love that I need is abundantly available here for me!
I bet when He said “He is the One for me”, He sure is.
I realized, the longing for idolatry is a deep longing for fathering. The parts of us longing for idols to satisfy us are the deep parts of us crying out for the love of the Father to secure us.
God desires freedom for us. And God desires us to be free so that He could fill us up with all the love He passionately desires to pour out upon each of us.
I will end with how Andy Comiskey said it:
“Freedom from idolatry is freedom for true worship. The call to renounce idols is a call to worship, to return to intimacy with the Father.”
“Look with wonder at the depth of the Father’s marvelous love that he has lavished on us! He has called us and made us his very own beloved children.”
1 John 3:1 TPT
The Words of the Daughter 