God’s the Destroyer of Idols

The unceremonious demolisher of all things put up in the name of God, but against God, is God. Any believer sown into the reality of life and trying to make sense of the Lord will note this—they cannot make sense of God:

“My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast.”

~C. S. Lewis

The Purpose Of Belief

It might surprise some to discover that it’s not God’s will to make us comfortable in our understanding of life or the Divine. We will never understand it, not in its entirety. The nature of life, the ultimate purpose, will not be fully understood.

The purpose of belief is to get us to look beyond an achieved understanding.

Knowledge is good, but it takes us only so far—its typical end is pride; to be puffed up and useless to the purposes of God. Such a place as knowledge, when it has too much priory, has us in little reliance on the causes for humility. Such times we don’t need God, only information—only everything apart from God; a false place. This is not good spiritual passage.

The purpose of belief is the broad construct that facilitates resilience, able to gently forge its way in life, through many deconstructions. Life deconstructs us. Only when we approach such deconstruction with a willing attitude to hope and to learn and to not be afraid do we invite God to help us. Faith, here, is essential for life.

We must go beyond our idols, and knowledge is just one, that put up barriers to God. Better still, it’s unmerited and seamless wisdom to sacrifice these gods of comfort and convenience, and surrender them instinctually and gracefully. For, this is the human condition; to have idols—to insist upon our way which is against the way of the Lord.

The Broadening Of Faith

This must be our sole conquest: to accede to the will of God at each turn and only by doing so will we know the blessing of the Lord.

Doing such a thing as this will make our faith broad as continents, but sufficient only in the purposes of truth. Such a faith will divine its way, without thought, in replete obedience to the Spirit.

As we allow the Lord to identify and flush out the presence of idols in our lives, and all of us have a few, God will see to it that our faith flourishes and our perspectives broaden. Then we’ll know God even more.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.