Friends,
I have a treat for you. We are going to start off 2016 with a little house cleaning. Guest blogger, Julie Neils, helps us identify our idols and then get rid of them. Julie honestly shares her idols and challenges herself and us (her readers) to take a close look at what we worship.
~Lori
Idols in Conflict
Conflict is inevitable
in any household. There are seven members in our family so there are lots of
daily skirmishes and a few big battles too. No matter what the fight is over,
it’s never fun.
I’ve been digging a bit
deeper on resolving conflict biblically. I ran across James 4:1-3:
“What causes fights
among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want
something, but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you
want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When
you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may
spend what you get on your pleasures.”
The hard truth is that
the desires James speaks of — even the good ones — often become the controlling
and dominant force in our lives. Once they’ve been elevated to the place God
should hold, they become idols. That’s when we start pressuring those around us
to bow before them as well. Hence, the origins of
conflict.
So I started thinking
about mine and how they contribute to the conflict within my soul before
conflict with those around me is even born.
Like when I get
upset with my 3-year old because she embarrasses me by throwing a fit in the
grocery store. No parent wants to deal with a temper tantrum in front of a
million people and most want to be conscientious and thorough. If
I’m really honest, though, sometimes I’m really angry because I want others to
think I’m a great mom. My little one’s temper tantrum just doesn’t fit into
that.
I worship my idol of good parenting.
Then there’s my shameful
impatience with my 12-year old in the midst of her ongoing struggle with
math. We all want our kids to excel in school, but the truth is I get
angry because I want my friends to think I’m a good homeschooling mom. My
child’s slow progress with math just doesn’t promote that image.
I worship my
idol of good homeschooling.
I hate to admit it, but
my anger at my husband for a laundry list of things that often encompasses him
not doing laundry or other things isn’t just typical marital frustration. Every
wife wants help around the house (And for the record, my husband does!), but
often I desire an unrealistic, Pinterest-perfect house.
I worship my idol of
good housekeeping.
The ugly truth is that
what I’ve often valued and worshiped most is myself.
My idols — good parenting,
good homeschooling, and good housekeeping — are often born of and built to my
own pride.
In and of themselves, none
of are bad, but they were desperately out of order in my life.
The great preacher
Charles Spurgeon once said of the Old Testament graven images, “False gods
patiently endure the existence of other false gods. Dagon can stand with Bel,
and Bel with Ashtoreth; how should stone, and wood, and silver be moved to
indignation; but because God is the only living and true God, Dagon must fall
before His ark; Bel must be broken, and Ashtoreth must be consumed with fire.”
Only one God stands
alone.
The rest must bow at His
feet.
The truth is painful,
though sweet in the end. Transformation is often gradual, but ultimately worth
it. God is in the process of reordering my life — putting my desires in their
appropriate place rather than giving and demanding servitude to them.
Conflicts still arise
around our house and to some degree, always will. We are individuals and a
family in progress and the stretching and the growing is good. May God, who
stands alone, take His rightful place in our house and most importantly, in our
hearts, as we do.
Julie
Neils is passionate about living a real life in a fabricated world. It's what
gets her up out of bed in the morning. That and five kiddos under the age of
twelve who need to be homeschooled. She’s addicted to coffee because she used
to live in Panama where great coffee is grown. She's also a regular
contributing writer at Ungrind.org, a webzine to encourage women. She was the
Media Manager for Focus on the Family and has spent more than fifteen years
advising ministry leaders, policy makers and authors on relevant,
out-of-the-box communications strategies. She and her husband live in the Rocky
Mountains. You can read more of her writing here: http://ungrind.org/author/julie-neils/.
