After typhoon Ondoy hit the Philippines, I joined a group of people that went to flooded areas and gave out relief goods to the people in the shelters. In all the relief shelters we went to, you’d see a little city of make-shift tents, lean-to shelters made out of cardboard and people lining up for what food and water they could receive.
Not having clean water to drink was one of the major problems of the shelters that we went to. People were getting sick because of poor waste management and contaminated water. Those suffering the worst were the young children and babies. Dehydration and diarrhea were among the chief culprits of suffering among the young.
The power of water.
One wouldn’t really see how important water is. Nor how it can greatly affect our well-being.
Even spiritually, Jesus offers us the water of life. The water that purifies, that restores and that reconciles. But the question is do we still drink this water? Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not raising an issue of salvation, but rather an issue of immersion. How immersed are we in this Water Jesus offers us?
How much do we desire it?
How much do we desire it?
I find it interesting that God declared that the Israelites have done two evils towards Him in the book of Jeremiah, chapter two: 1) they have forsaken God, who IS the fountain of living waters; and 2) they have created broken cisterns for themselves, from which they now drink from.
Can you imagine yourself forsaking what God is offering to us (insert all the good stuff He intends for us here) and choosing what we thing is good for us? I can, and I’ve done that dance of wrong choices a lot.
It’s not that I stopped loving God. Oh no. I love God with all my heart now and I loved God with all my heart then, but I loved my version of God more than God’s version of Himself. In our world today, we are constantly reminded of the divine and encouraged to seek it. We are encouraged to seek God. The problem comes in the kind of God we seek. Sure we all seek Yahweh, but whose version do we choose?
Our’s?
Or God’s?
I am not saying that the God you worship is fictional. I am not saying that to focus on God’s grace is evil. But to focus and worship only certain aspects of who God is really isn’t who God is. It’s only part of who He is. Perhaps the thought of a jealous or angry God isn’t appealing. Maybe you disagree with it and say that it has no place in today’s Christianity.
It’s like getting a sedan and having the two back doors sealed shut and the back seat taken out because you really want a sports car and what you have is a sedan. But no matter how much you modify your sedan, it will still be a sedan. Because it IS one.
No matter how much we try to re-define God according to what we feel or what we believe should be His attributes, that still wouldn’t change who God is. Bishop Cesar Punzalan once told me that to love only parts of who God is still is idolatry. It took me a long while to wrap my head around that statement. But it is true. If we worship God based on what we want Him to be, or how we re-define Him, and not on what the Bible says who He is, we have created our own image of God, just like how the Israelites created their own cisterns. God was the fountain of life giving waters. The Israelites made copies of it. Poor, incomplete and broken copies. God has revealed Himself through His Word. Do we edit some aspects out (particularly the ones we don’t understand or don’t like) or do we choose to embrace the fullness of who God is, our feelings and opinions notwithstanding?
Idolatry isn’t only about the people or things we desire that get in the way of God having our heart. It is also when we choose to believe that our God, the creator of the universe, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the Rose of Sharon, the great I Am should be defined by us.
As if we know God better than He knows Himself.
Idolatry begins when we cease to desire to know who God is and think we’ve got Him figured out. Idolatry begins when we start to edit aspects of God we think shouldn’t be and create new ones we think He should have. Idolatry begins when our hearts stop beating to the rhythm of God’s heart and start creating it’s own groove. Idolatry begins when we stop drinking from the fountains of life giving water, and decide to drink from our own poor, broken and dirty fountain replicas.
I, for one, do not wash my hands and pretend to be clean. I know that there have been episodes in my walk with God that I fell prey to this subtle Idolatry. A tactic Satan has masterfully employed in Christianity today. “Who says you aren’t worshipping God? Just tweak Him a bit. He is a PERSONAL God, isn’t He? So shouldn’t God fit to YOUR UNDERSTANDING?”
May your heart never cease desiring to seek God’s heart. May your spirit never grow tired and weary in your pursuit of Christ. May you take time to honestly asses which God you are worshipping, and may you choose to drink from the fountain of life giving waters and not our own broken, dirty cisterns.
