Despite our presumption of inviolability, the scourge of mediocrity will eventually overtake us, no matter how we seek to avoid it, even as we strive toward ongoing excellence in all areas of our life. And it is during this so-called scourge that we often then realize the subtle idolatry which affixes itself to our search for significance. Our quest for fulfillment, for cooperative grace with others, for immediate results in many simultaneous areas of personal execution, sometimes betrays our impatient notion that we believe we, not the Sovereign Lord, are the arbiters of the universe, and that we, by sheer dint of personal whim, can steer how God governs our role in said universe.
Isn't it a bit laughable how the thread of idolatry creeps into our midst so clandestinely that we find ourselves making clever rationalizations such as the following two examples?
1. Literature isn't my idol. I just love it so much that I'd rather involve myself with every aspect of it, most of the time, than do anything else.
2. Marijuana isn't addictive: Just look at me- I've been smoking it every day for twenty years and I'm still not addicted.
(I am not equating literature with cannibus; nor am I putting the love of literature on an equal playing field of idolatry with the recreational habit of smoking pot. In absolute candor, I find it hard to harmonize the effects of this latter practice with the clear mandate to be sober-minded, and to always be eager to sharpen our Christian mind. But I chose this example of idolatry, not because the average Christian would confess to such a habitual practice, but because many "idolators", be they Christian or pagan, would find personal relevance with this specific rationalization, whether through personal experience or through anecdotal awareness with someone they personally know.)
But for me, as Rob Clarkin, I find that my love of the finer elements of the Lord's planet can really hamper my focus on the Presence of the Lord. I am so prone, in my own moorings, as I noted in a blog post just the other day, to write as though if I don't express every jot and tittle of my cerebral grapplings in one 24 hour day, then the Apocalypse will readily claim the entire lot of unsaved humanity before the break of the next dawn.
Likewise, I am such an ardent lover of literature and music that I have a legendary tendency to posit (to myself, as it were) that the best way for me to commune with the Lord is to incessantly listen to the Brandenberg Concertos until the point at which I can see the divine imprint of Jehovah's anthropic principle undeniably present in every movement of each concerto!
It's hard, if you are a human being (of which I claim clear membership) to not fall into wanton idolatry. I am not referring to worshiping a statue, per se; or pray tell, worshiping Baal, or Isis. I speak to the regenerate mind, to the person of circumcized heart: we, too, due to the deceptions of our hearts, are willfully prone to inexhaustable patterns of idolatry. Whatever our predilections, we will find ourselves abusing our time spent with a given art, craft, or venture, because it is part and parcel of the mystery of free will, the connected mystery of godliness, and the impartation of the Potter's Wheel, which begins to mold our characters, not at the expense of our joys and proper pleasures, but rather, for the ultimate expansion of our own personal craftsmanship, which we are sewing into now, for time and for eternity.
Jehovah is the Father of Heavenly Lights, who does not change like shifting shadows, and from whom every good and perfect gift (Jas. 1:17) is dispensed unto the sons and daughters of the Most High God.
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