People who don’t know God worship idols. There is no middle ground of non-worship, where I give my allegiance to nobody and nothing. As human beings we are made to worship, and we will worship substitutes if not the true God.

Idols can be many: in the Western world, not usually literal idols, but more often jobs, homes, money, cars, family, relationships, study, good health, beauty, fame, etc: the “good life”. We devote our time, money, energy and attention to procuring and maintaining these things, while God falls by the wayside and receives little or no attention. These “idols” are what we look to for life, security, and happiness, and we truly believe our existence is tied up in them. We manipulate them, others, and circumstances endlessly to ensure they will provide us what we seek.

When Jesus enters a life, a radical shift occurs. He said, “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:37-39)

Our life becomes Jesus-shaped, our idols abandoned to follow him, our obedience to him priority no matter what the cost. He is centre focus, our Lord and Master, the reason for our existence. We joyfully give up pursuit of our idols, or subsume them under his authority, because we trust him and not them to give us life; and we recognize his control over them. We learn that the things we formerly looked to for life are actually gifts from him, and that it is in his power both to give and take away. We joyfully trust his promise that “all things” work together for our good.

But often, what actually happens when we become Christians is that God becomes just another piece of the puzzle. He is added on and his role is to keep our idols intact. As long as we have a good job, a nice place to live, good relationships, worldly success, and “life” as we define it, God loves us and we’re happy with him. Our job is to put in the church attendance, prayer and Bible reading that ensure he keeps his part of the bargain. At our heart, we are cold to God and our idols receive our worship.

This is why you see many Christians fall apart when tragedies occur. They lose their job, and meltdown happens. They struggle financially, and spiritually. The beloved child dies, and they abandon worship. The spouse who was their everything leaves, and God is no longer good. By observing people’s lives, not what they say, you can tell what things are actually god to them.

I’m not talking about legitimate grief, struggle, hurt, pain, depression, etc. Those things occur, even to those who trust God. I’m talking about a life based on the idols of wood and clay that are anything material or human. When these things fail, as they inevitably will, the worshipper’s core existence is shattered and he questions God.

All of us are prone to idol-worship, even as Christians: it’s our nature as fallen human beings. That is why, I believe, God allows suffering in the lives of his children. He will touch those idols that he knows we most love. He wants to turn our attention from them to him, and often their failure is the only way. As long as our system works, we won’t change. Only pain that involves the failure of our gods turns our eyes away from material and flesh and pins them painfully but hopefully on God.

God is very patient, and will often woo us gently for a long time before he resorts to taking our idols away. There will often be a period when things don’t quite go the way they’re supposed to and we start to see the failure of our gods. We will keep clinging to them, which is when he becomes as radical as he needs to be to purge our soul of the poisonous love of all that can’t bring life. Out of desperation, the bereft soul cries out to God as her only hope. Thwarted in worship, she turns to a radical trust in him, abandoning the gods that failed her.

Maturity as a believer comes when our trust in God and our estimation of his love for us are not based on the circumstances of our life, in a fallen world which will continue to disappoint; but based on his heart, his promises, his revelation about himself, his commitment to do us good—and his insistence that he is worth our trust. This is faith.

Dan Allender said it best in his incredibly excellent book, The Wounded Heart: Hope for adult victims of childhood sexual abuse (which I heartily recommend to everybody, not just sexual abuse survivors):

Legitimate shame (that is, facing our failure to trust God) is the basis of our return to the Father. For most, trusting God means relying on Him to keep our body or our world intact. But that is not biblical trust at its essential core. Trust involves relying on Him for what is most essential to our being: the intactness of our soul. A return to the Father ensures that no one can shame or disgrace or possess our soul—that quintessential core of who we are that will live eternally with Him—no matter what is done to our body, reputation, or temporal security. (p. 75)