The Idolatry of Safe
A fantasy that has been worming its way into my thoughts and quiet moments, and my heart has been setting itself on it, happy.
This fantasy involves a quiet country lane leading to a quiet country house, with quiet acres where, in my fantasy, my children can run free and I can sit enjoying the quiet and of course, peace.
This is my fantasy.
Because this year has been just plain hard. Chaos overwhelming. The longest, coldest, winter we've had in forever, with long days of six kids and usually several more neighborhood kids stuck in our smallish house. I dream of a place where the doorbell does not ring fifteen times per afternoon and when pull into the driveway there are not already herds of cheering boys greeting the sight of the big red van.
A place where there is room for little kids to run in safety away from the busy street and the bands of marauding teenagers that spend their days carousing for trouble.
Away from the kids selling drugs on the corner.
Away from the registered sex offenders that live all too close.
Away from the police helicopter and its prey that stalks.
Away from the constant friction of kids stealing from us, fighting with us, away.
And I think, really Lord don't you want to give me this? All I want is a little peace?
All I want is a moment of rest where for one single solitary moment I don't have a worry about where my kids are or who they are with or who is outside right now and are they safe?
All I want is a little peace and safety.
And in my fantasy there is this imaginary place that provides that. There is this quiet country lane where I can finally sit and rest for a moment sipping lemonade in the sunshine and let my kids go outside without fearing for their lives. But this place doesn't exist.
It is a fantasy but more than that it is something much more sinister.
It is an idol.
Maybe you're thinking, what? An idol? I thought that was a statue that people worship as their god?
Yes. But our idols here in prosperous America are often harder to spot. We also worship things other than God Himself, even though we say He is our one true love. Anything that we look to for peace, safety, security, happiness, comfort, pleasure, other than just God Himself is our functional idol.
Are you a workaholic? Trusting in achievement or success to produce fulfillment? Idolatry.
Maybe it's money you're trusting in to make you feel secure.
Maybe it's relationships, maybe it's food, maybe it's approval. We all have idols.
Where do we go when we are fearful, what are our secret hopes, fantasies, longings? If it is anything other than Christ that we hope in, Christ that we dream of, Christ that we long for, then we are living for an idol.
Idols are often good things, like children, spouses, jobs, but when we look to them as the source of our happiness, peace, security, or hope then they have become an idol in our lives.
God wants us to have good things, He wants to give us good gifts, but when we fall more in love with the gift than the Giver, then the good thing has become an idol. It has taken His place in our heart.
But me, I want to be free.
Free from this idolatry of the heart. Free to live for Christ, free to love others, free.
And I have moved enough to know that a house in the country will never make me feel secure. It will never provide the peace I'm longing for, it will never provide the quiet of soul that it promises.
My secret longings for peace and safety will never be found in a place, they are only ever found in a Person.
The One who is called the Prince of Peace, he came into our broken world, and He didn't run away from danger, chaos, difficulty, or sinful people. He brought the Peace with him into the raging storm and He quieted it.
He ate with the most hated and lowly of society, went to their parties, spoke life-changing truth in love to them, gave His life for them on a bloody cross.
He walked out radical love every day of His life on this earth and showed us the way to real freedom; faith in only Him.
And as I look to the cross and see Him there, and remember that He did it for me, because I am the broken, the sinner, the undeserving one, it makes me fall in love with Him again.
And when your heart is full of love for Christ, there is no room for other false loves.
What really destroys our idols is a fuller love for Christ, until there is no room for anything else.
So, I contemplate His sovereignty, that I live here, in this neighborhood by His grace, that I might bring His peace in the midst of this storm, that I might bring His quiet love to the chaos of this place, that I might bring His grace to this broken, hurting world.
And as I look to the cross again and again and see the proof of His love for me when I least deserved it, it fills, it floods, it crowds out the competition, until all that is left is Him.
And He is all I really need.
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