Uncontrollable

SCRIPTURE:  What good is an idol carved by man, or a cast image that deceives you? How foolish to trust in your own creation—a god that can’t even talk! What sorrow awaits you who say to wooden idols, ‘Wake up and save us!’ To speechless stone images you say, ‘Rise up and teach us!’ Can an idol tell you what to do? They may be overlaid with gold and silver, but they are lifeless inside. But the Lord is in his holy Temple. Let all the earth be silent before him. Habakkuk. 2:18-20 NLT

THOUGHT: When Isaiah sees God (Isa. 6:1-8), just the train of God’s robe, trailing down from the throne he is sitting on fills the temple. Let that sink in for a minute. God is living and moving and asking Isaiah questions. He has angels attending to him, singing ‘holy,’ with voices that shake the foundations, and is very much alive.

It puts in stark relief the question why would we serve anything that is inert? Why would we make a god of anything that we control? Why not love, with fierce passion, the uncontrollable God who created the universe, and created men and women, and the miracle of babies, and families, and all life?

There is a promise implicit here in Habakkuk that God is very much alive and the most appropriate action from us is silence. Every word from him is living and powerful and sharper than a sword that can cut both ways, says Hebrews 4:12. So, if you’re tempted today to put any idol on a pedestal – money, relationships, sex, power, science, success, glory, hobbies, ideologies, whatever is not God – just remember it is not capable of giving life, and you are not made in its image.

SONG: God is God https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmlNFMTrAIQ

PRAYER: Living God, I can’t believe I once sought life from idols. I made idols of humans and success and pleasing others. Now I feel so free, and I’m grateful to the God I can’t control for making me that way.