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Rita's Tuesday Blog:
A Way In The Wilderness

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God will make a way even where there seems to be no way.

 "I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert." Isaiah 43:19
 
February 24, 2020: We Don’t Worship Idols? Or Do We? - Part 1
HashTags: #idols #circumstances #RitaMoritz
 
Exodus 20:3 “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
 
God didn’t exactly stutter when He told the Israelites they weren’t to have any other gods before Him (Exodus 20:3). And if He meant it with them, you can bet He also means it with us. If we’re serious about giving God first place in our lives, it might mean we need to move some idols out of the way so that can happen.

Wait a minute! We aren’t pagans. And we don’t worship idols, do we? Well, do we? While it’s possible someone might have images of the Greek or Roman gods in a shrine in their living room, it isn’t likely. But those aren’t the kind of idols we’re talking about here.

Pastors preach about our homes, our jobs, our boats, or our cars becoming our idols, and they should preach that. But those of us who are walking a wilderness path aren’t usually concerned about those things. Our “idols” are more subtle than that.

The “other gods” that distract us and keep us from keeping God in first place are more likely to be our prodigal, our circumstances or even our pain. Can those things be idols? I would have said, “absolutely not” until a friend recently told me, “Whatever you think about when you first wake up, the last thing you think about before you fall asleep, and the main focus of your thoughts during the day…that is your god.” Ouch!

But wait! Is it wrong to be concerned about my prodigal, my frightening diagnosis, my husband losing his job? Should I be dishonest about how awful my circumstances are, and must I lie to others and myself about my pain? No and no and no. Of course, we should be concerned and honest about where we are emotionally.

But that diagnosis, those circumstances, and even that pain cannot be the primary focus of our life or even one day of our life. If they are, they have stopped being a part of our lives and have become our god…and a most unsatisfactory god at that.

Challenge for Today: What might happen if we, just for today, asked God to help us shift our focus from our problems to the Problem Solver and left the outcome in His hands?
 

If you want to talk about this blog post, send me your phone number in a private FB message to: Rita on Facebook or in an email to: rita@ritamoritz.com, and I’ll call you. In the meantime, be safe.

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