Is not this thing in my Right Hand a Lie? (written Nov 9, 2020)
I am still in Isaiah. It is so relevant for what we are facing today: who is our trust in? In God, who we cannot see? Or in people and things that we can see? That is called idolatry. The prophet spends a lot of time in Isaiah 44 defining the ways that people set up their idols. Remember, the prophet has the difficult job of telling people the truth. He offers hope, but not without truth. Truth can be uncomfortable though. It can often look you in the eye and say: you are the problem: you need to change! And that is exactly what happened to me.
When my husband’s addiction got to the point when it could not be ignored any longer, what did I do? Pray? Ask for help? No. I decided that because I was in ‘uncharted waters’ that I should just go ahead and fall apart too. I tried everything to make myself happy. Instead, I got more and more unhappy! Idolatry! People and things! That went on for a few years until the day I heard God’s voice. Not an actual voice, but a thought: ‘you have a Creator, you should find out what He thinks.’ And I know that thought came to me from God Himself: it is simply not the kind of thought one would have on their own.
So, I started to read. And I started to have a desire for truth in my own life. God is the Author of truth! He is the Author of everything, so if we start from a place of humility, He will reveal truth to us! (Break for church, back later.)
And this happened again! Remember when I said my husband and I were reading the same passage without realizing it and then sharing it with each other (when I wrote ‘Live Life Ready’ dated 11.06.2020)? Today, Sunday, I started this before church. On the way to church, Danny asked me if I read “Wild at Heart” today – a devotional by John Eldredge, and so we pulled it up and read it in the car: Isaiah 44. On idolatry. What are the odds! How cool is that! I love when God does that, so that I will take notice and keep going! It confirms that there is something I am supposed to jot down. So, this is what I was noticing:
Isaiah is confronting them with the foolishness of their idolatry: ‘No one stops to think, no one has the knowledge or understanding to say, ‘Half of it I used for fuel; I even baked bread over its coals. I roasted meat and I ate. Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left? Shall I bow down to a block of wood?’ He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself or say, ‘Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?’’ (Isaiah 44:19,20)
In a way, this can be kind of hard to relate to for us. after all, not very many of us have household idols that we bow down to. Or do we? Anything that sets itself up against the knowledge of God is a sin for us. Here is the thing: anything that we hang to instead of God, no matter how innocent it may seem to us, can derail us. A friendship that has become too consuming, social media accounts that have become too distracting, political positions, substances that we have come to depend on, houses, the stuff we spend our time thinking about, people who are fun to be with but do not help us grow in our walk with God, the desire to be loved, the desire to be admired, and it goes on. That was where I found myself a few years ago when I decided that God had let me down. Idolatry. Literally ‘feeding on ashes!’ But this is the best part, that God Himself came and got me. He did not allow me to get to a point where my deluded mind was hardened beyond repair. Oh, it was deluded for sure because I had given the enemy a foothold. I had also stopped reading my Bible. Those two things are a deadly combination! But the fact that Isaiah wrote this, and that I have had the privilege of reading it, means that there is hope. Still, if we are complacent, and allow our deluded hearts to mislead us, then we are unable to recognize ‘the lie in our right hand’.
But right after this confrontation about their idols, the Lord says this: ‘Remember these things O Jacob, for you are my servant O Israel, I have made you, you are my servant; O Israel, I will not forget you. I have swept away your offences like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.’ (Isaiah 44:21,22).
I held an idol in my right hand for a while, but when I ‘came to my senses’, I got rid of it! Of everything that had anything to do with it. I turned and went in the opposite direction. I stopped feeding on ashes and started feeding on truth. God’s word is truth. It is counter intuitive. The things we think will make us happy, cannot! The thing we do not think will make us happy (following God), does! It just takes a healthy reverence for the One who created us to get started on this adventure:
‘He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation, and wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.’ (Isaiah 33:6)
