A Bad Trade
I once bought a solar-powered, motion-sensing owl decoy to keep squirrels away from a bird feeder. When I bought the fake owl, I thought I was a genius. But after I saw the squirrels chatting with it as they ate the seeds, I realized I'd wasted my money.
Financial mistakes have a measurable cost, but foolish spiritual decisions are catastrophic. We trade knowing the immortal God for serving images that look like his mortal creatures. We reject God's truth so we can entertain ourselves with lies. God made us with the dignity of being made in his image, but we degrade ourselves by behaving in subhuman ways. We're giving up everything to get nothing at all. Paul knew the Holy Scriptures well. In Romans 1:23, he says we "exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling... four-footed animals." Psalm 106:19-20 reads, "At Horeb [the Israelites] made a calf and worshiped the cast metal image. They exchanged their glory for the image of a grass-eating ox." The pattern of idolatry can be traced back more than a thousand years, to the very moment that God was revealing himself to his beloved people. The writer David Foster Wallace spoke at Kenyon College's commencement in 2005. He said, "There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship...If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth...But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings." Even as he diagnosed the inevitable cost of false worship, he couldn't bring himself to call it evil. The consequences are just. As C.S. Lewis explained in The Great Divorce, "There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.'" If God shocked us every time we started to think a bad thought, he could force us to comply. But God wants us to become good and loving. He honors our choices by linking them to consequences. Whatever we do, our sin doesn't change God. Even as Paul addresses degraded worship, he can't help but give God the praise he deserves. God is the Creator who forgives us, cleanses us, and empowers us to worship him again.
When have you been certain that a bad choice was a good choice?
How would you complete this sentence? "I'd finally be okay if..."
What have you trusted to make your life better that didn't work out?
What's something you check on your phone more often than you'd want to tell a friend? Talk about that with God. Or, if you have someone you trust enough, with a friend.
Sources:
Wallace, David Foster. Kenyon College commencement address, May 21, 2005. Transcript at Farnam Street.
Lewis, C. S. The Great Divorce (HarperCollins e-books, 2009)