Daily Journey: Day 188
What Happens When You Might Lose It?
“Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” — 1 John 5:21
Idolatry sounds like something from another world until something important gets threatened. That’s when you start finding out what has been carrying more weight than you realized.
Success can do that. So can reputation, money, a relationship, or the picture you have of what your family is supposed to look like. None of those things has to be bad. The problem starts when losing one of them feels like losing yourself.
I think leadership exposes this faster because leadership constantly puts valued things at risk. You may have to tell the truth and lose approval. You may make the right decision and still watch the result go badly. In those moments, you find out whether something was simply important to you or whether you needed it in a way only God was meant to be needed.
John closes his letter with a remarkably simple warning: keep yourselves from idols. Maybe that’s because the issue doesn’t need to be made complicated. Anything can become too heavy in our lives if we ask it to tell us who we are.
Why this matters
An idol doesn’t have to be evil. It just has to become important enough that you’re willing to bend faithfulness to keep it.
Reflection
What are you most afraid to lose because of what you think losing it would say about you?
Word of the Day
Idolatry: Giving a created thing the identity-bearing weight or trust that belongs to God.
“Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” — 1 John 5:21 (ESV)
