May 27
DebDay 74: That Day
There are times when I read my Bible, like today, and I get chills. Sometimes the chills are good chills, reacting to the promises, the blessings and benefits of God toward me.
Other times, like today, I get chills. Scary chills. Chills reacting to potential dread.
The prophet Isaiah was commissioned by God to communicate God's words to God's people of the southern kingdom, Judah, back in the 700's BC.
While there were words of encouragement and hope in a coming Messiah, there were also words of judgment and coming destruction, deportation and death. The fate of the northern 10 tribes would also be their own.
Isaiah 17:7 says, "In that day man will look to his Maker, and his eyes will look on the Holy One of Israel. He will not look to the altars, the works of his hands, and he will not look on what his own fingers have made, either the Asherim or the altars of incense."
Meaning, the day was coming when God's people would finally realize that their devotion to their false gods had not delivered.
Sadly, when the exiled people would finally get around to looking to God, they would look in His direction...as strangers.
My fear today is that there could be entire churches filled with people who are busy looking for safety, security, significance. And they've been looking to anything but God. For generations.
Here's my point. The Covid-19 pandemic has already caused social upheaval. The economic upheaval for us has only just begun. But I will add this - this season, the isolation we are still experiencing has raised to the surface our own, personal idols.
The reformer John Calvin once said, "The human heart is a factory of idols." We all hope an idol will do our bidding, so we all make and protect our idols.
And, we don't even have to use our hands. Our hearts are perfectly capable of fashioning idols. On a daily basis.
With the potential advent of physically gathering as a church again in the next weeks/months, all of us, to a person, will experience our idols being challenged.
We may not want to gather at all.
It may be we have become accustomed to the convenience, even the comfort of isolation. We're really okay with not having to serve anyone other than our own family members.
It could even be, in our most base and honest moments, that we could tell ourselves we prefer online church, because it fits our lifestyle choices and preferences.
We will be just fine with engaging without caring, and participating with nothing required of me.
Maybe we should pray "that day" doesn't become "our day."
-Mike Rydman, Lead Pastor, Radiant Church | Juneau
