I Is For Idols: Learning To Live For An Audience Of One

The dearest idol I have known, whate’er that idol be, help me to tear it from thy throne, and worship only thee. ~William Cowper

You will sing your song to an audience of one, or to an auditorium packed with idols.

Every day we choose between them.

Idols (your insatiable demanding self, or the slippery approval of the crowd) never pay at the door. They slip in the side door, impressively dressed, secretly impotent. They promise the world and give nothing.

Look around. Everywhere you turn heads are tilted to hear their suggestive hiss:

• Unless you are (attractive, accomplished, applauded, approved of, well-off, well-married), you will not (be safe, be important, be special, be loved, be happy).

• People who don’t (look like you, agree with you, vote like you, seem likable to you) aren’t worthy of (a dance, a friendship, a place in your oh-so-busy life).

• Count on God to show up (for religious gatherings, major tragedies, a momentary spiritual high) but most things you will need to figure out for yourself.

It’s too easy to nod in agreement, to bow to what seems inevitable. But we can be free of those voices, to perform instead for an audience of one.

Idols Smashing: The Ten Plagues

In Exodus, chapters 7 through 15, we read the curious story of God delivering his people out of slavery. The Pharaoh is reluctantly convinced after ten plagues are unleashed by Moses’ command. Blood, frogs, lice, insects, pestilence, boils, hail, locust, darkness, death—why use up so many small disasters instead of performing one dramatic act?

I wonder if God was addressing Egyptian idols in the audience.

• Osiris was worshipped as the important, life-sustaining god of the Nile. In the first plague the river water is rendered useless.
• Heqt, the frog goddess, assisted women in childbirth, mandated by the Pharaoh to end in death for Hebrew sons. After the second plague the air reeks with the stench of dying frogs.
• Amon-Re, the sun-god was praised as the source of warmth and light. In the ninth plague all light is snuffed out, the darkness so dense no one can move.

More is at stake than a mere battle of wills between Moses and Pharaoh. A cosmic question is being settled over the pyramids, “Who is worthy of being God?”

Idols Annihilating: The Golden Calf

A few chapters later, rescued from Pharaoh’s control, Israel still turns to any idol at hand. We humans like our homemade gods–they are tangible, understandable, and comfortably like us. We prefer a God contained, a golden calf we help shape.

 Idols Impotence

To say God is angry understates his reaction. Why is a piece of gilded pottery such a threat to God’s plan? Because the almost is a smoke screen for the most, for what we truly need. Those seductive whispers I’ve listed above do point to the truth: You were wired to feel safe, wanted, special, loved, happy, protected and potent. But idols are pretenders to a throne only one King deserves.

Your best weapon against the empty seduction of idolatry is to laugh at the presumption, to throw all promises of glory, glamour and glittering refuge high, like confetti into the air.

And then sing your song with all your heart to an audience of one.

Which idols whisper loudest in your ear?

Exodus 12:12  Exodus 32:1

In our series, An Alphabet Adagio, we are savoring the story of the Bible, our story, alphabetically. You can subscribe to e-mail above so you won’t miss a letter. Next: J is for Happiness Joy. 

Photograph by Melanie Hunt