Summer Goals and Idol Worship at Golden Gardens

I had a good talk over a cigar with Cambria last weekend. We always have a good talk over a cigar. While our once vigorously planned “quarterly goal” meetings have been shelved for the last few quarters, we decided it was time to talk Summer Quarterly Goals.

I was bemoaning the fact that my previous goals that I once was so disciplined about now were all obsolete as I lacked any motivation to get up at 5am, read my bible for 1/2 an hour and go running 5x a week, make all my lunches a month in advance and freeze them, etc.

She said, “maybe you need to figure out your mission for this summer and build your life around that instead of trying to get all those little chores disciplined. The mission will make you be disciplined around it.” So I have been trying to think about my mission this summer.

I thought about why I don’t “have time” to be on mission or do things that are healthy for me. And Mark preached on idolatry.

I realized, sheerly by reviewing how my time was spent, where my idols were.

It was time to think about this deeply, so instead of calling my friends, going out for late Sunday night happy hour,  or going home to clean up the house before another week started… I headed out to Golden Gardens to think through stuff and talk to God. It was God date time.

I pulled into a parking spot to view the beautiful sunset knowing full well that pretty much every other car pulled up would be hosting a couple’s make-out session, but nonetheless deterred, I tried to keep my gaze straight ahead and have my conversation with Jesus.

God is jealous of my worship? He wants me to be in an exclusive relationship with him? He gets jealous when I seek love and comfort elsewhere? Does that mean he’ll provide that? HOW?!?

I need more love than I feel from you, Jesus. I need you here. I need you to show up so I know you’re here. I need more comfort and assurance. Do you really want to give that to me? Can you give me more and better than my false lovers? If I walk away from them, will you be there? Will you fill the holes? Will you be the parachute if I jump out of this plane?

As if to answer me in that indirect, change-the-subject kind of way that Jesus perfected in the gospels, he brought my attention to a car a few spaces away. Changing the way I thought about my idols, my “lovers,” the things I worship that bring me fleeting happiness, that I cling to, obsess over, and sacrifice friends, family, sleep, health, and time for… I was given a very disturbing picture.

R-rated from here.

I looked across the parking lot, and a few spaces away there was a couple in a BMW. The guy had a surly expression on his face, unpleased, checked out. And it was evident even from a distance that he was in control of her, and she was completely centered and focused on him.

And there, right in their car, in the parking lot at Golden Gardens, she started giving him oral sex. While he stared off at the sunset, looked around bored, spaced out, she was worshipping, in lowly position, sacrificing dignity and so focused on him she was brazen enough to even do this in public . . .

While I was traumatized by the scene I was not prepared for, I could hear God saying, Your idols don’t love you any more than he loves her. Your worship of them is disgusting and shameful and it defiles you. She doesn’t even see how degraded she is, all she sees is him. She is blind and doesn’t even see that he doesn’t love her, never will, and is only using her. That is what you are doing when you worship idols. There is no respect, love, joy or care. Just disgusting abuse. Your idols will never love you. And I am jealous because I DO love you, and my love is so much better and yet you serve these disgusting things. Return to me.

I felt angry. I wanted to go scream at her and say “what are you doing?! Get away from him! He is disgusting and doesn’t love you!” I wanted to kick him so that he’d never have children. I wanted to make it stop, as she defiled herself several times over the 30 minutes I was there. He just sat there like he deserved it and almost like he hated her and thought she was an animal. It made me absolutely crazy.

I DO love you. Return to me.

Jesus is the only one we can worship who will give us dignity, value and worth. He is the only one who truly and purely loves us. He is the only one worthy of worship. Even the good gifts he has given us (spouse, children, food) become dark and sinister when we place them in the “number 1″ position.

What idols are you degrading yourself with? Do you believe that Jesus can take care of your needs better than them?

Do you see how your idols defile you? Do you see how they make you act? Do you see that you are still miserable when you are done worshipping them? When the sacrifice is burnt up, and the flames are going out - aren’t you back to where you started, but with less time, less love, less friendships, less LIFE?

Romans 11:36 + 12:1 For from him [God], and through him and to him be all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

So I finally wrote something down.

Summer goals:

1. Worship Jesus. This means:

a. denouncing known idols. “make no provision for the flesh” - remove from my life those things that encourage worship of idols, ie, stop stocking my house with chocolate…

b. making space for God with the ‘firstfruits’ of my time - time to read the Bible, time to pray, re-dedicating my commute time to prayer instead of NPR or KUBE. Is it a wonder I don’t enjoy him at 2am when I should be asleep but am trying to cram in my Bible reading for the day?

2. Get on Mission. This means:

a. praying through what God wants me to do this summer and deciding concretely what that is ASAP.

b. Re-scheduling my life for that.

c. Allowing worship of Jesus to fuel passion for getting on and staying on mission.

What are your goals this summer?