Conversation on Idolatry

Recently, at the birth of our fourth, we gave our three older kids a present each as a way to express our care and love for them. One of them received a gift of several toy horses. She promptly lost the baby horse (her favorite) in the house later the same day. For the next two days, she proceeded to mope and stomp and cry and refuse to be happy until the horse was found. It quickly became ridiculous. After several go-arounds, we sat down to have a talk and had a break-through.

I told her, in short, that she was being ridiculous. While helping her look for the horse, I had told her several times that we understood, that it was hard to get a toy and then to lose it. But now things had gone on so long, I wished we never would have given her the horse, if we knew it was going to cause such problems. She had been happy before she even had the horse, but ever since she had it and lost it, she had been miserable and making everyone else miserable. I told her that maybe there was a reason God hadn’t let her find the horse. (You have to be careful trying to interpret God’s will like this. Sometimes we will pray that God will help us find something that has been lost. But I didn’t think it was appropriate to pray that way when she was acting so angry and taking it out on everyone else. It is wrong to spend prayer on our desires when they are full of sin and prayer really needs to be spent on repentance.) Maybe God wouldn’t let her find the horse until she repented. She has informed us several times recently that she has been praying for God to change her heart and give her a new heart. Maybe this was something God was doing to help her know what that meant.

So I told her that the horse had become an idol. She was refusing to be happy until she had the horse back. She had been happy before she even knew the horse existed, but now she couldn’t be happy without it. Having the horse was more important to her than anything else, and she was willing to make everyone else miserable until she had it. (As I talked with her about it, she was still glaring at me.) We have talked about what it means to be a child of God - that when we’re trusting God, we have a peace with him in our hearts that is bigger than our circumstances, that the fruit of the Spirit is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control”. I asked her if she had any of those things right now. She said, “No.” What do you have? “Angry.” What does that tell you? “The horse is more important and real to me than God.”

I then asked, “Does the horse talk?” She looked at me funny and said, “No...” “Does the horse run by itself? Does it play? Does it hug you? Love you? Is it good for taking you on long journeys? Does it listen when you tell it all your problems?” Again, “No...” The Bible talks about idolatry and says, a man finds a tree in the forest and cuts it down. Half of it he burns in a fire to stay warm. The other half he crafts into an idol and bows down and worships it. (See Isaiah 44:9-20.) Psalm 115:4-8 says, “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.”

I asked her, “What do you think of that?” She said, giggling, “That’s stupid.” I said, “Does your horse talk?” Laughing again (obvious change of attitude), “No” “Does your horse play with you?” “No”. “Can the horse really make you happy?" "No." "When you find the horse, is it really going to make that much difference in your life?” “No.” “Well then, what is it?” Smiling sheepishly, “An idol.” “What do you need to do?” “Trust God and repent.” “You know what Jesus did? You were his lost treasure. And he went to the ends of the earth and to his own death to find you and win you back. And he rejoices for eternity when you repent and are found by him.”

We ended the conversation with a very different attitude.

She found the horse the next morning.