In Jeremiah 10, the prophet is speaking against the idols that Israel created. They looked good – made of silver and gold for a people that likely didn’t have a lot of either. It represented wealth and substance by the metrics of society; it represented the type of security that people wanted in a day-to-day existence when they’d fallen out of close relationship with who God had called them to be. While such idols might have looked good, though, the actual effectiveness was nonexistent.
“Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and the cannot speak, they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, nor is it in them to do good.” Jeremiah 10:5
This is in direct contrast with Jeremiah’s description of God that follows: instead of precious metals from other broken places that have to be paraded around for someone to look at, we worship a God who is the King of all things and all places.
The point of this passage might not seem immediately applicable to you because (I hope) you’re not worshiping a precious metal statue carried around to your home, to Target, and your workplace. But it’s a bit more applicable when we consider that we’ve all placed too much value at one point or another in the metrics of worldly success while allowing that misplaced authority to drive us farther away from God. In so doing, we become enamored with the surface-level beauty of something, even if it’s ultimately useless against the struggles of our lives. Can your nice new car erase the trauma from your past? Can your stock options erase your insecurities? They cannot, and neither can the other man-made accolades, trophies, or titles.
But what about the God who crafted and sustains the entire universe? That God invites us to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, enjoying Christ’s defeat of death and brokenness for ourselves and our circumstances. That doesn’t mean we won’t experience hardship – but it does mean we’re following something bigger and better than whatever situation we’re facing this side of heaven.
Something can be both new and shiny, and also dead and lifeless. When it comes down to it, when we need to move through our problems, we need something that can walk alongside us, instead of distract us so we don’t have to feel the struggle. Where have you propped something up in the place of God? What achievement, ambition, hobby, or coping mechanism have you allowed to tell you who you are and how you’re doing? And how can you, this week, focus on what God says about you instead?