Baal

If you're like I was, you think that Baal is a particular type of false god. But according to Tim Keller, senior pastor of Redeemer Pres, a baal is a generic term. It was used to refer to the numerous idols of gods and godesses of the Canaanites that dotted the land at the time of the Old Testament. I looked it up - he's right. Keller goes on to say that anything can become a Baal for us.

I have come to realize more and more over the past few years just how true that is. It's not the "bad" things that I idolize. It's the "good" things. It's cleanliness, motherhood, matrimony, homeschooling, etc. Usually, it's the things that I think make me more pleasing to God. I can avoid, with relative ease, the drunken orgies and murder. But idols are those things that we think about more than God. They are those things that, if I lost them, would devastate me. The things that weigh down my heart before Him.

We've been talking in Wednesday night class about how repentance has always seemed to be asking forgiveness and then trying harder. Isn't that what sanctification is? God saved me. Now I have to dig in and try really hard to change myself. NOPE! That's using the flesh to conquer the flesh. Doesn't work.

What I am realizing more and more is that when I am consumed with... whatever, I have lost my spiritual focus. When I try hard to sanctify myself, I'm saying that God is either not big enough to do it for me or He doesn't care enough to be that involved. Neither of which is true. He is both big enough to handle it and intimately passionate about me to want to. It's tricky. How do I relax and trust Him to make me holy and not sit around doing nothing all day? I'm not sure of the answer to that question. All I know is that it's a day by day, moment by moment turning my heart to remember His love.

Life would be much simpler if my only idol was a porcelain unicorn that I could smash with a hammer.