30day Put God First Test 2012: Day 2 – “Non-talking idols that shout”

What has been driving me, oftentimes, in my life to work late nights and weekends for my job is fear of dropping the ball on something.  Or sometimes, fear that I won’t get proactive things accomplished without sacrificing sleep and weekends.  My regular job is so busy and I have so many ideas and goals I want to implement – that if I can’t knock those out I become very frustrated.  So, what I do is get my internal determination revved up and I work an all-nighter or I work Friday and Saturday late night to get caught up.

Its not wrong to work hard and frankly- I love it.  However working late sometimes is a false medicine for me.  My “false god” or “idol” I’m afraid is both fear and pride.  Fear that I won’t accomplish something and pride that as long as I sacrifice sleep and work hard I can do anything.  You may have noticed in the last sentence that God wasn’t mentioned- yah that’s what I’m saying is the problem.

So, if you’ve ever wondered “what can be an idol in a Christian’s life today since we don’t have actual statutes people bow down to anymore”.  Well for me fear and pride are two big ones.  Some other, smaller, false gods actually shout pretty loudly for being non-entities and they are related to the big ones.  Any individual email, project, action item, request, or goal that I feel obligated to in a way that sacrifices my time with God is an idol that is in my way.  I won’t stop working hard but I’ve got to work hard with something close to reasonable work hours – so that I don’t go days or weeks with my prayer life impacted.  As a Christian I believe in miracles.  I believe that if I put God first – he’ll bless my work.  Now I do believe as a Christian I should be the hardest working guy in the office too- but I believe God wants me to trust him, pray about things, and expect his strong help.