Dug Up and Dethroned

The house next to mine is vacant. It's been vacant for close to three years now. Since the last residents moved out, not one shrub had been trimmed, until a few weeks ago. I asked my "landlord" to have someone trim the 8 foot tall azalea bushes and other random shrubs that were making the house, and the whole street, look abandoned. I know abandoned houses attract varmin, of the animal and human variety, and I wanted to avoid that at all costs. In an effort to show my support of this project, I even spent 3 hours one evening cutting and trimming with my hedge clippers that were no match for these massive branches. I did clean out two huge piles of honeysuckle vine, and I was quite proud of myself.

Then, Friday morning came, and when I left for work, the men had just shown up to "trim" the shrubs. I didn't exactly get what I was hoping for. I can imagine the conversation went something like this.

Jed: "Tom, you know, if we trim these shrubs today, we're just going to have to do it again sometime."

Tom: "You're right, Jed."

Jed: "And you know Tom, they're planning to tear this house down in the near future. No one's going to live here again. Why trim the shrubs? You thinking what I'm thinking?"

Tom: "Yep, Jed. I think I am. Let's just get rid of them all."


And that's what they did. I got home to find nary a bush or shrub around the house. Everything was gone. They had dug up all of those plants from their roots. Instead of the house looking abandoned, now it looks naked. I had to laugh, realizing that those grounds keepers certainly know how to eliminate work for themselves! If I had known they were going to take that route, I certainly wouldn't have wasted 3 hours of my time trimming and pruning. I wasn't really mad, but I was a little frustrated.

And then I read something in my Bible a few days later that made me see this situation in a completely different light. I am currently reading A.W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God. In Chapter 2, he discusses Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac. We find the story in Genesis 22. Basically, Isaac is Abraham's long promised son. And God asks him to take Isaac up to the mountain where God would show him and sacrifice Isaac. Abraham was obedient and took Isaac up the mountain, got so far as to tie him up and lay him on the altar and raise his knife to kill him when God stops the whole thing. Instead, God provided a ram for the sacrifice. Isaac was spared.

I always read this story and saw it as a test of Abraham's faith. And I think it was, but Tozer's commentary on the passage helped me view it in a new context. You see, Isaac meant everything to Abraham. Tozer explains,

"Abraham was old when Isaac was born, old enough to have been his grandfather,
and the child became at once his delight and idol of his heart. From the
moment he first stooped to take the tiny form awkwardly in his arms, he
was an eager love slave of his son. God went out of His way to comment
on the strength of this affection. And it is not hard to understand. The baby represented everything sacred to his father's heart: the promises of God, the covenants, the hopes of the years and the long messianic dream. As he watched him grow from babyhood to young manhood, the heart of the old man was knit closer and closer with the life of his son, till at last the relationship bordered upon the perilous. It was then that God stepped in to save both father and son from the consequences of an uncleansed love." (p. 24)

Abraham started to put his love for Isaac above His love for God. He made Isaac an idol of his heart. Not too long ago, I had an idol of my heart...okay, I've had many in my lifetime and probably several right now, but let's focus on this one particular one. It wasn't that this idol was bad in and of itself, in fact, it was good. It was exciting and exhilarating. It made me feel good. It made me feel alive. And I wanted to honor God through this idol, but somewhere along the way, I took God off the throne of my heart and put this idol in His place. I was willing to change the course of my life for this idol. But at the same time, I honestly wanted to seek after God. I loved God, but I also loved this idol, and not in the right order.

So what does God do for his children who are honestly seeking Him but place an idol on the throne of their hearts? Let's go back to the story of Abraham. God has finally given him a son as he promised, and now he command's his servant to give him up? This makes no sense! Or does it? Tozer explains it this way,

"Now he was a man wholly surrendered, man utterly obedient, a man who possessed nothing. He had concentraed his all in the person of his dear son and God had taken it from him. God could have begun out on the margin of Abraham's life and worked inward to the center. He chose rather to cut quickly to the heart and have it over in one sharp act of separation. In dealing thus, He practiced an economy of means and time. It hurt cruelly, but it was effective." (p. 27)

I had asked for the bushes at the house next door to be trimmed. Instead, they ripped them from the ground at their roots. They got rid of them completely. Trimming would have resulted in those shrubs growing tall again. Trimming would have resulted in more work in the future. Digging them up from the root, however, removed the issue all together. Now those workers can put their focus on things that matter. And when we place idols on the thrones of our hearts, God sometimes does the same thing with us in order to get his rightful place back. He did it with me and my idol. It was stripped from me in one fell swoop! And it was painful. And I questioned. But it was a matter of obedience. It was a matter of the heart, and I want God on the throne of my heart. I don't want an idol or idols there.

It's the same with sin. If we recognize sin in our lives and try to prune away at the edges, thinking this will at least diminish the sin's reach, the sin remains. We must get rid of it at the root. We must destroy it from the middle. Trimming the edges will never extinguish the sin from our lives. It will only cut it back for a time. And the destruction of the root only comes through repentance, not suppression!

It's so easy to put idols on the thrones of our hearts. And they may be good things. A job, a relationship, money, fame, even ministry opportunities. But only one person deserves to be on the throne of our hearts. And if you are earnestly seeking God, don't be surprised if sooner or later he brings you to the testing place. As Tozer says, "At that testing place there will be no dozen possible choices for us - just one and an alternative - but our whole future will be conditioned by the choice we make."