I never set out to become an idol worshiper. There was no golden calf. No calculated attempt to usurp my Heavenly Father. It was that slow, quiet creeping in and taking over that did me in. I allowed another human being to become more important to me than my Savior. I planned my days, my months, my life around this person. And as human beings are apt to do -- intentionally or not -- he ultimately failed me. He disappointed. He abandoned me. He could not be my god. He was soon replaced by another. Another who, like his predecessor, could not fill the void. And one day he, too, left me. After spending several years chasing shadows, the Almighty's whispers were all but drowned out by the enemy's lies. I felt myself lonely. Devastated. Hopeless. I had left my first love and found myself in spiritual exile.
My Babylon was no where near as trying as that of the Israelites', but there was common ground. There is common ground. There was and is still hope for those who earnestly seek Him. The enemy will tell us there isn't. He will say that God has left us. That we have been abandoned by our King. That there is no reason not to succumb to the culture of our captors and spend our days flitting from one fleshly distraction to another. But it is a lie. Just as Jeremiah came to the Israelites and gave them a message of hope, our Savior has done the same for us.
"This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” Jeremiah 29:10-14
In my rebellion, I succumbed to the enemy's lies. And when the idols I'd recklessly followed failed me, I felt all was lost. Tomorrow marks eleven years since I threw in the towel, swallowed a bunch of pills, and gave it all up as lost. Tomorrow also marks eleven years since God snatched me out of captivity and affirmed that He does, indeed, have plans for me. Plans for hope. Plans for a future. Plans for His Kingdom. My life was not over. He was not done with me. I don't have all the details. I must rely on Him for those in His timing. And I still struggle from time to time with things and people that compete with God for my heart -- some of them very good things in and of themselves (but anything that replaces Him as our utmost priority -- where our thoughts, time, money are devoted -- is an idol). But nothing, nothing can ever separate me from the love of God, in Christ Jesus my Lord.
"What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:31-39
And the same goes for you. Will you seek Him?
