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“Girl! How did you get to this point?” I asked myself. The only reply I could offer the girl with the tear stained face was “I lost sight of God. I took my focus off of my father.” It’s not like I stopped following God. I went to church when I could, I prayed daily, and I kept God’s word in my heart. Yet and still….I lost focus of God. I allowed my love for a man to take precedent over the most important part of my life…..GOD.
Idols are defined as “images of a deity other than God.” I allowed my fiancé to become my idol; completely ignoring the voice of God and what he was calling me to do. In the process, I lost sight of me because let’s face it….who am I without my creator? Now, I didn’t just lose myself overnight. It happened in the course of a time period. It was a trickle-down effect and before I could recognize how fast I was snowballing…I hit rock bottom all due to my love for a man. I lost myself, my sense of purpose, physical and financial means of living, and lost my heart in one single swift blow. I had put my faith and love in man over God. Don’t get me wrong….I wasn’t oblivious to what was happening. I, in my weakness, ignored the warning signs and OH THERE WERE PLENTY. I was so infatuated with this man loving me that I forgot that I already had the greatest love of all, and I forgot to love who I am first. I have always heard that God was a jealous God…but to experience it firsthand…is a blow that I never want to experience again. Also, if my experience can help someone avoid this same mistake that many of us women make, then I have to share what God has shown me with you.
For the past few years, I have been in a wilderness season. I’ve had to go through some things to grow through some other things. This season has been very reminiscent of when Moses led his people from Egypt and God kept them wondering in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights. One night while praying, it was placed on my heart that this season is for me to finally learn several lessons that I have had to repeat for the last time. This final straw that broke during my relationship with my fiancé was the camel that broke my back. It brought back the point in the scripture when Moses had just come down from the mountain top with the 10 commandments only to witness the Israelites worshiping the Golden Calf. (Exodus 32:19-21) They were “idolizing” the calf. So when Moses returned and witnessed this debauchery, he became so enraged that he destroyed the golden calf.
The symbolism hit me like a ton of bricks!!! I allowed my relationship to become that golden calf. HELLO!!! Golden calf = my relationship. I had become the impatient and ungrateful Israelite. I wanted so badly to move forward in the relationship that I started doing things as if we were already married; including planning and acting on starting a family. All the while, I KNEW that God wasn’t pleased. Due to my actions, my impatience, my desperate want to have something good in life (no matter the price I had to pay), I put this man on a pedestal before God. Like I stated before, God did warn me several times that I was treading in dangerous waters. I even had dreams about the consequences that I would face, but I was so enthralled in my wants that I proceeded with my crazy plans. God wasn’t having ANY of it! The lashing that I received was so bad that it felt like a beaten from my father producing a silent breathtaking cry. And just like that…the relationship that I devoted so much time and effort into…ended.
Deuteronomy 7:25 says, “The graven images of their gods you are to burn with fire; you shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, or you will be snared by it, for it is an abomination to the Lord your God.” The word is crystal clear. Many times we try to mold and shape it to fit what it is that we want neglecting the fact that God always tells us what the consequences would be if we go against his word. I clearly went against God’s word and now I am dealing with the consequences of my actions. It is true that he holds the saints more accountable because we know what the word says, but we make our own lives difficult.
The fact that I am able to identify my wrongness, repent, and readjust my mindset to fall back in line with God’s word shows that God hasn’t left me. If I had strayed so far from God, I wouldn’t have been able to identify the lesson in this situation. God never left me……I just stopped listening. For that reason alone, God had to remove the thing that was in the way of him getting to me in order for me to be snatched out of the downward spiral I was in before I completely lost my soul. The fact that immediately after this debauchery I was able to identify my father’s voice shows my maturity as a child of God and the relationship that I have with him.
My message to you is the wait may be hard, you will become impatient, but let my lesson be your guide. Don’t rush God’s hand and act on your own understanding and knowledge. Your impatience and posture during your wilderness can bring you more pain than you can imagine. Proverbs 3:5-6 says to “Trust in the Lord with ALL of thine heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him and he will make your paths straight.” In the age of fast knowledge, fast food, fast cars and “easy” living, we expect God to act like a vending machine. We give change (ie one Sunday a month in church) in exchange for what we want from him by selecting the number of the item we are looking for. God doesn’t work like that at all. Allow God to do what he does best. He is God after all! He knows what the future holds, sees the stumbling blocks ahead of us, and knows the areas that we need to grow in before he gives us what he promised. We have to be able to handle our promise when he blesses us with it. TRUST GOD! He’s never fail before and he never will.
Whatever your idols are…LET THEM GO. They are hindering you from receiving the gifts that God is trying to bestow upon you. Once you release those things, God can usher you into your promised land. Your decision will determine how swiftly God acts on your behalf. I pray that my testimony reaches someone who is struggling with idolizing something or someone. I pray that my testimony reaches you before it’s too late and you fall into the same downward spiral as I have.
Always with Love,
GorgeousBrownGirl
