Eden-enough: The Tragedy of Everyday Idolatry

You wake up to the alarm on your phone. Reach over to stop it and decide to scroll a little. Out of bed and to the bathroom. You wash your face, brush your teeth, and now you’re maybe actually awake. After making yourself breakfast (or not), you get ready for work and head out the door.

During the commute, you listen to your regular music or a podcast/audiobook that somebody told you was good. You tell yourself to get into it so maybe you’ll have something to talk about next time you see them. You get to work and churn until the end (unless you do something different everyday in which the variety adds a little spice to your life). Throughout the day, you pick up your phone to scroll, have a YouTube video up on a second monitor, or otherwise find/make the time to escape into whatever world you’d rather be in.

After work, you maybe hang out with friends or at least someone in order to have your fix of belonging for the day until you inevitably head back home and do whatever it is you do to escape once more into that glittering other place.

Your Eden-enough.

Mine was video games. Better yet, I’d come home everyday and–instead of making time for the things I knew were most important–get on Discord and play a game that probably wasn’t even the same one my friends were playing. My belonging was, in some ways, built on and very much wrapped up in that internet/gaming culture. It was who I was.

Not long ago, I wrote an article for 71.5 Magazine about escapism being the true danger of media consumption. At that time, my spirit was still very much trying to claw itself out of the desires of my flesh. Not only that, I was on the cusp of realizing that all of my dark temptations and “harmless” daily desires were intertwined vines of unsatisfied yearning.

Nevertheless, in that article I presented a similar scenario as I did at the start of this one. It was much more harsh and honestly targeted at the “me” I no longer wanted to be. The LORD has been pulling me gently from the quicksand of what the devil had stirred my flesh to believe was where I belonged. Some days, I feel like a recovering addict. But lately I’ve realized what I was participating in was rooted much deeper and hidden well in the cultural idea of good and evil.

See addiction is obviously bad. But what about hobbies? What about fandoms or collections? “Everyone knows it’s just what I’m into.” The joke is though that even I didn't know it was the head of my personal pantheon.

Oh yeah, you got it. Idolatry.

I’ve been studying the first four commandments specifically, and I’ve found that God doesn’t just say “don’t have any gods before me.” He pretty clearly denounces having gods after Him as well. Ironically, having any other gods besides Him always leads to them coming before Him.

Don’t believe me?

What’s the most important thing to you? Really? Look at your daily life, even if you’re already a Christian. Whatever’s the most important thing to you is going to be the thing you think about the most. It’s going to be the thing that motivates you to do anything. It’ll be the thing you love, the thing you long for. You’ll look forward to it the most, you’ll daydream of it!

That was me! That was me, I’d live my whole life riding the wave of excitement for the four to six hours I’d end up playing a night–annihilating my sleep schedule–because that was the only time I ever really felt alive. That was my purpose though I desperately longed for something greater. That was my great adventure, my source of wonder. Sure I believed in God, but I didn’t worship Him. I was a “Christian” far from being an actual follower of Christ.

I worshipped, I dreamt of, I imagined, I was inspired by, I yearned for all that the games would tell me I was!

A hero. The chosen one. Cool. Strong. Destined to grow. In control of my fate. In control. It was all up to me. Finally. A world in which I can really make a difference.

Can you believe that? I would give myself fully to a product designed to tell me that I was the most important person in the universe and feel as if it really must be true. How stupid and foolish could I be? Well, turns out just as stupid and foolish as humanity has always been.

“People who worship idols are stupid and foolish. The things they worship are made of wood!” 

—Jeremiah 10:8

In the early decades of the 600s BC, the prophet Jeremiah was called by God to try and help correct His people. They gave themselves to other gods, finding meaning in things they had to pick up and move around!

“Their gods are like helpless scarecrows in a cucumber field! They cannot speak, and they need to be carried because they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of such gods, for they can neither harm you nor do you any good.”

—Jeremiah 10:5

I was no different. I sought purpose in the works of men and called them gods. 

But I praise my Heavenly Father for not giving up on me. He taught me and gave me the strength to shatter my idols and tear down the high places. But quitting video games was only the first battle in a war for my imagination. To this day, even as I’m writing this, I feel the tug of my flesh. I associate playing video games with some of my most formative memories, closest friendships, and even my most fundamental inspirations.

But by the grace of God, He will cleanse my imagination. I have faith that, in time, He will open the eyes of my heart to see life the way He does. At least enough to keep my flesh starving to death.

So it might not be video games for you, but we’ve all got something(s) that daily tugs our flesh towards hollow worship. We live in the world, society, culture, etc. that has turned idolatry into a money making machine. But let me lovingly remind you of the great and powerful truth that is this:

“Idols are worthless; they are ridiculous lies! On the day of reckoning they will all be destroyed. But the God of Israel is no idol! He is the Creator of everything that exists, including Israel, his own special possession. The Lord of Heaven’s Armies is his name!”

—Jeremiah 10:15-16

May His will be done :) 

–Cristian