Can the Bible become an idol?

A friend asked me, “So what did you read in the Bible today?”
And I was stumped. I fumbled around with a lame answer and quickly changed the subject.

But later on, for the life of me, I could not recall what I had read that very morning!
True, I had been in a rush to get somewhere and hence had hurried over breakfast and God-time, but I could not remember exactly which passage I had been reading from.

Other than embarrasing me, that got me thinking.

I realised that my 'quiet' time had become a ritual, nothing more than a habit that I followed – like brushing my teeth every morning.

An unthinking routine.

My relationship with Jesus had come to a standstill. Like a stagnant pond, I was subsisting on the algae that had taken root over the years but there wasnt any fresh water, or revelation, evident in my life. I hadn't back-slidden as such, I'd just stalled. The Bible had become a replacement of the relationship I had shared with God.

But you see, to have a relationship, you need to communicate, to talk and to listen. Lately I had been talking at God and not waiting long enough to listen to what he had to say in return. As long as I met my reading quota for the day - one chapter from the Old Testament, one from the New, one Psalm and one from Proverbs - I was ok with the state of things.

Thankfully God wasn't. And as he often does, he sent a reminder in the form of that question.
I've realised that even a good thing, like the Bible, has the potential of becoming an idol*, when you replace God with it.

Learning from Saul

1 Samuel 10:20-24

20 So Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel before the Lord, and the tribe of Benjamin was chosen by lot. 21 Then he brought each family of the tribe of Benjamin before the Lord, and the family of the Matrites was chosen. And finally Saul son of Kish was chosen from among them. But when they looked for him, he had disappeared! 22 So they asked the Lord, “Where is he?”

   And the Lord replied, “He is hiding among the baggage.” 23 So they found him and brought him out, and he stood head and shoulders above anyone else.

 24 Then Samuel said to all the people, “This is the man the Lord has chosen as your king. No one in all Israel is like him!”

   And all the people shouted, “Long live the king!”

I think, often we can be like Saul. We know what God asks of us, we know what he wants us to do, we know that we are equipped and anointed, we can see the direction he is pointing us in – but we are scared, we doubt ourselves, we think he has made a wrong decision, we lack the confidence to step forward and take responsibility.

And so we hide.

We hide behind the 'baggage' of life.

Behind what has been 'done' to us.

Behind 'why the past' is the reason we cannot move forward into the future.

Behind 'busyness', doing everything except what he requires us to do.

Behind – excuses.

But God finds us out and leads us on. Saul was found hiding in the baggage compartment, and when he was brought (read dragged) out, he stood 'head and shoulders above anyone else'. This guy was huge, AND he was the handsomest man in all Israel (1 Samuel 9:2)! Amongst the twelve tribes of Israel, there was no one else fit to lead the nation. Yet he had self-worth issues (1 Samuel 9:21) which continued for the rest of his life. He never felt he was good enough. The feeling of being inferior and falling short of what was expected haunted him always.

Like Saul, we vacillate between our feelings and our calling.

We need to start seeing ourselves as God sees us. Our self worth is determined, not by what the world says about us, not even by what we tend to think of ourselves, but what God has to say about us, as his children. When we accept what Jesus did for us on the cross, we are forgiven and accepted into God's family. And when God looks at us, he sees, not what we have been, but what we are in Christ. That is where our identity lies, and that is where we should look whenever self-doubt creeps into our consciousness.

If God has called us to do something, he will equip us to do it well.  It’s all about stepping out in faith, knowing that God will come through. He knows all about Human Resources, he knows each one of us personally and he does not need to conduct an aptitude test to determine, whether or not, we are suited for the job. All he requires of us is to be willing and obedient.