Dear Friends:

When most people think of “idols” the have in mind literal statues–or the next pop star anointed by Simon Cowell. Yet while traditional idol worship still occurs in many places of the world, internal idol worship, within the heart, is universal. In Ezekiel 14:3, God says of the elders of Israel, “These men have set up idols in their hearts.” Like us, the elders must have responded to the charge, “Idols? What idols? I don’t see any idols. God was saying that the human heart takes things like a successful career, love, material possessions, even family, and turns them into ultimate things. Our hearts deify them as the center of our lives, because, we think, they can give us significance and security, safety and fulfillment, if we attain them.

We think that idols are bad things, but that is almost never the case. The greater the good, the more likely we are to expect that it can satisfy our deepest needs and hopes. Anything can serve as a counterfeit god, especially the very best things in life.

What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.

A counterfeit god is anything so central and essential to your life that, should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living. An idol has such a controlling position in your heart that you spend most of your passion and energy, your emotional and financial resources, on it without a second thought. It can be family or children, or career and making money, or achievement and critical acclaim, or saving “face” and social standing. It can be a romantic relationship, peer approval, competence and skill, secure and comfortable circumstances, your beauty or your brains, a great political or social cause, your morality and virtue, or even success in the Christian ministry. When your meaning in life is to fix someone else’s life, we may call it “co-dependency,’but it is really idolatry. An idol is whatever you look at and say, in your heart of hearts, “If I have that, then I’ll feel my life has meaning, then I’ll know I have value, then I’ll feel significant and secure.” There are many ways to describe that kind of relationship to something, but perhaps the best one is worship.

— Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods, (New York: Penguin, 2009), pp. xiv, xvii-xviii, emphasis in the original

Elijah then came near to all the people, and said, “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him” (1 Kings 18:21).

The people of Israel are in distress. Their ancestors had walked boldly into the Promised Land following God.  Now, centuries later,  that memory is maintained in pride and a vague guilt that things aren’t as they should be.

Apostasy and rebellion have split their nation. The powerful human compulsion to seek strength in numbers rather than trust God for their care has led them to go along to get along with the peoples around them. They have adopted the gods of those peoples on the promise that they would receive strength, virility, power and sexual pleasure in return.

Their Creator God has called them to live in a relationship of reverent love. But love is hard. Love asks them to live selflessly for the good of the other. It insists on a vulnerability and humility that their proud and rebellious hearts will not yield. They would rather hoard and exploit their meager existence than trust the Life-Giver.

The Baal, the “golden idol” of the fearful and the bored, has come to represent their desire for a god of creature comforts. But instead of prosperity, they are suffering the third year of a withering drought. Instead of peace, they are ruled by thugs who take their children and property on a whim. Instead of comfort, they are enslaved by a superstitious cult of blood and violence. Instead of love, they are dissipated by the empty mockeries of lust.

They are crippled, a wounded, thirsty, dying people, limping along in the imbalance between the weakness of their idolatry and the lingering memory of the strength of the God who loves them and wants so much more for them.

Limping is what its called when you walk lamely with an irregular and unsteady gait because you are favoring one leg. I know about limping having suffered a lame leg for years.

When you limp, you find that you need to walk somewhere, but weakness or pain in the injured limb restricts your freedom to do so. Worst case, the leg won’t support you and you will fall if you stand on it.You use the bad leg as little as possible, letting it go limp, while propelling yourself with the good leg.

Limping reflects a hard choice between movement which hurts, or inactivity to avoid pain or unreliability which, after a while, leads to deterioration of health and fitness. In trying to work between these two conditions, you end up limping along, trying to have it both ways. Limping over time causes problems, but does not solve them.

It is tiring to limp. If the condition worsens, you have to use a cane or a crutch to steady yourself and leverage movement. Further muscle imbalances can occur leading to back problems.

One of the bad habits that my physical therapist is working with me to stop is my tendency to move up steps by twisting and hurling my upper body forward to avoid using my painful left knee. This puts extra strain on my back. With my knee replaced and pain-free there is no longer any reason to do it, but the muscle memory is hard to reprogram.

Elijah wants to know how long the people are going to limp between the opinions of the God who calls them to a pure and passionate love and the Baal that calls them to frenetic, self-destructive action? At dawn of a new day, he puts the issue to them. “You must choose a God.”

What does this have to do with us?

We are ever and always faced with choices–about relationships, vocations, lifestyles, spending money, even about what or who we believe. But the choice that must be made first–the choice  on which all other choices depend–is who is your God?

Have you made that choice? Does your god reside in your relationships, work, lifestyle, and success? It may be you’ve chosen to be god for yourself, at least on the decisions that matter most to you.

Do you find yourself limping along in a painful imbalance between devotion to your God and the demands of the life you have chosen for yourself? How often are you thinking about your work when you are in worship or prayer? How often are you thinking about God when you are at work?

These are hard questions, and you likely choose to avoid them, walking through your life with an irregular gait which is a fancy term for limp. If you’re limping, you’re not whole.

A few weeks ago, on a sunny spring morning, I walked out of my physical therapist’s office and spotted Patricia waiting for me across the parking lot. I ran over to her. It was more than a jog and less than a sprint, but it was a definite run with an even stride and there was no pain.

It surprised us both and brought tears to our eyes.

I’d been limping for 15 years. I never thought I’d run again. It took a surgeon putting a new knee in me to make it happen.

I know from experience that your limp between God’s opinion and Baal’s won’t end until you let God put a new heart into you, an undivided heart focused on him and capable of receiving and holding the love that he will pour into it (Ezek 36:26; Ps 86:11).

Your Baal will only take from you, and never give you anything. That’s the cause of your limp. How long are you going to stumble on this way?

“You can’t serve both of us,” says Jesus (Matt 6:24).

“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him” (Ps 34:8).

Under the mercy of Christ,

Kent

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Please note that the content and viewpoints of Mr. Hansen are his own and are not necessarily those of the C.S. Lewis Foundation. We have not edited his writing in any substantial way and have permission from him to post his content.

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Kent Hansen is a Christian attorney, author and speaker. He practices corporate law and is the managing attorney of the firm of Clayson, Mann, Yaeger & Hansen in Corona, California. Kent also serves as the general counsel of Loma Linda University and Medical Center in Loma Linda, California.

Finding God’s grace revealed in the ordinary experiences of life, spiritual renewal in Christ and prayer are Kent’s passions. He has written two books, Grace at 30,000 Feet and Other Unexpected Places published by Review & Herald in 2002 and Cleansing Fire, Healing Streams: Experiencing God’s Love Through Prayer, published by Pacific Press in spring 2007. Many of his stories and essays about God’s encompassing love have been published in magazines and journals. Kent is often found on the hiking trails of the southern California mountains, following major league baseball, playing the piano or writing his weekly email devotional, “A Word of Grace for Your Monday” that is read by men and women from Alaska to Zimbabwe.

Kent and his beloved Patricia are enjoying their 31st year of marriage. They are the proud parents of Andrew, a college student.