Excerpt from Isaiah 46:1-13

"Idols cannot answer or save from disaster." (Good News Bible)

Reflection by William C. Green

Idols take God's place. They promise more than they can deliver. Some of them had strange names in the Bible—like Bel, Nebo, or Baal. Today they might be called greater wealth, security, the approval of others, or just happiness. There's nothing wrong with wanting these things unless they become more important than the close relationship God wants with us.

When anything or anybody else takes center stage—spouse, partner, children, friends, other people, job, security, success—sooner or later disillusionment sets in. No one and nothing else exists to meet our needs and desires! They have their own demands or needs and desires.

Relationships, love, and even faith itself can become idols. How many relationships have been stifled by over-expecting what they alone can offer? How easily our love itself can mask a demand for love. And how often faith itself never seems enough.  But relationships, love, and even our own faith leave us "restless," as Augustine put it, until our hearts rest in the assurance only God provides and nothing less.

With that assurance, it's a lot easier to find what we want. Without it we can drive others away in a preoccupation with their own assurance and approval. And so with the pursuit of success on the job or with anything else when that leaves us in knots.

Prayer

God, you are my sufficiency in all things. May I not look to others and my own success for the assurance you alone can give. So may I love, live, and work less anxiously and more freely. Amen.

About the Author William C. Green is Vice-President for Strategy and Development, Moral Courage Project, NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and the author of 52 Ways to Ignite Your Congregation: Generous Giving.

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