Blinded to Our Idols
I really liked what Driscoll wrote about his experience in India and the woman who was deeply troubled by all the idolatry of America; "At first, I was stunned that she would accuse my culture of being idolatrous, but as I sat at the Monday-night football game, it became apparent to me that sometimes we see only the errors of worship in someone else's culture while neglecting to be as objective in our own culture."
This jarred me to realize that I can be truly blinded to idols right in front of me. In America it seems like we worship entertainment. I find myself getting excited about the next big movie to come out or building my DVD collection or wanting to watch the big game on plasma HD TV. It seems we have so much wealth that we don't know what to do with it other than spend it on more leisure. Are we really that bored that we have to spend so much time sitting passively in front of a screen? It's easy for me to make time to watch a 2-hour movie with Lori, but really hard to have a 20-minute devotional with her.
What do others think... any other idols in our culture that we can be blind to?
posted by Mark C at
10:07 AM
2 Comments:
I think the idol of physical fitness and slenderness. It is easy to worship the idol of good perfect looks. -Melissa
By
dutch, At
August 24, 2008 at 4:25 PM
Thanks for the post Mark, and for your comment as well Mel.
Although I read over the post a few times in the past week, I was struck by the word "blinded" as I read it today. That's the problem with our own, personal idols. We're blind to them.
I think that's what David was talking about in Psalm 139 when he said, "Search me, O God, and know my heart..." Show me who I am! Show me my sin and my idols!
For me, a big idol is success. Specifically, I want to make a cool "laser" device in research and be famous for it. Then I want to build a company around it and be famous and rich for that too. At the root of all of this, is an infatuation with myself. I care so much about how others view me and their approval of me. I guess another way of saying this would be self-worship. Or the prison of self.
Here's a pretty cool quote from C.S. Lewis:
The pleasure of pride is like the pleasure of scratching. If there is an itch one does want to scratch; but it is much nicer to have neither the itch nor the scratch. As long as we have the itch of self-regard we shall want the pleasure of self-approval; but the happiest moments are those when we forget our precious selves and have neither but have everything else (God, our fellow humans, the garden and the sky) instead.
By
Jesse Lu, At
August 29, 2008 at 10:05 AM
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