Vacation

I'm learning a few things about myself on this little beach vacation ...
1. I like doing nothing .... but feel compelled to "accomplish" something.
2. Laying on the beach (or at the pool) could be the sum total of my vacation experiences if it weren't for #1
3. Mission trips have been the majority of the travel I do and I don't really know how to do the "tourist" thing.  However, yesterday when Gavin suggested that I could visit a home for unwed mothers (NO ... not because I am, but because he had been there on a previous mission trip), and for the record, I did NOT take him up on that suggestion.
4. Vacation food should have NO calories!  I might have had marble slab for dinner.

But, back to #1.  I finished my "no redeeming value" reading early in the afternoon and moved on to something I'd been wanting to read with a little more spiritual value.  And from this vantage point, I could have read the Wall Street Journal and been happy!  :0)

This might not have been the best pick of books to read beachside ... but it has me thinking.  It's called No Other Gods by Kelly Minter.  Most of us get the whole 10 commandments, "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me" ... and of course, we'd be fast to say that we don't.  But really ... we do.  The other gods I serve were right there in front of me as I read ... body image/exercise/weight (ok, so I talk about that more than I do anything with that), family/relationships, success, sports and athleticism, beauty.

Let's borrow Tim Keller's definition of idolatry ... "taking a good thing and making it an ultimate thing" ...  Satan has us snowed in the idolatry department.  He's not going to start by trying to turn our attention to something bad ... not if that takes much effort on his part.  He's not gonna have to work that hard.   How much easier, to take something good and make it too important in our lives ... to have it replace God or our trust in Him.  Obviously, having a son became a "little g" god in Abraham and Sarah's life ... so much so that they quit trusting their "BIG G" God!

"The evil in our desire typically does not lie in what we want, but that we want it too much."

- John Calvin

Hmmmmm ... not sure beach vacations were meant for thinking about such things ... Over and over again in scripture, God emphatically states, "I am the Lord your God"... we don't need all of these "little g" gods we make for ourselves.  We need Him.  No goal or relationship, no person or position is going to fulfill our longings, desires, or our heart.  Yet, like Abraham and Sarah ... like Moses and David ... like the Israelites and many, many others, when God seems slow and our need feels big, we so often pull one of those "little g" gods out of our closet and serve them ... thinking it is what we need.  It never is.

I love the "I am the Lord your God" statement in Exodus 20:2 because it ends with " ...who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery."  He is the Big G God who brought them across the Red Sea with all of Egypt on their heels, He led them by fire and cloud, fed them with manna, kept their shoes and clothes from wearing out. He is a BIG God ... the LORD our God.  And for us as well ... HE is the One who brings us OUT of ... out of whatever might tempt us to snatch up one of those little g gods in our closets!

We worship our BIG G God ... but we serve our little g gods ... with our time, energy, heart, service. They aren't bad things ... we can even make a little g god out of ministry (yikes!).  2 Kings 17:33 says, "They worshiped the LORD, but they also served their own gods "  It was more obvious back then, perhaps, a house idol or a spiritual article in the home ... we're a little more subtle today, but no less caught up in serving other gods. 

HE is jealous for us ... we sing it, but we don't live like it.  Pretty sure we as women are intimately acquainted with those feelings of jealousy ... for anything/anyone that comes between us and the object of our affection.  It might just be part of being made in the image of God.  However, we try to play off jealousy like we'd never feel that way ... God comes right out and says "I am a jealous God" ... don't have any gods but me. He doesn't want competition for our hearts.  

Yep, I'm having a hard time with the need to accomplish ... but I haven't finished the book.  I haven't finished the thoughts.  And I AM on vacation.  SOOO ... I think I might find something mindless to watch (urrghhhh ... another one of those gods ...)