Have you ever struggled to have confidence in life? In your relationship with God?
It might be around a decision, a relationship, a choice you’ve made, but now that assurance and confidence you had seems to be shaken.
Where does that come from?
The answer for many people might surprise you.
Idols.
Each person has a default idol of their heart, what pushes them to make the decisions they do, both good and bad. Tim Chester points out in his book You Can Change: God’s Transforming Power for Our Sinful Behavior and Negative Emotions that each of us has an idol that is either for power, control, comfort or approval. They overlap and we might have all four at different times, but these four things push us to sin, succeed and live our lives.
The hope we have is that they will bring us the fulfillment we long for.
For example, when a man works a ton of hours to provide for his family, he is doing a good thing to provide for them. But he might be doing it so that his family will approve of him or that he will have the comfort he longs for.
Or, when one tries to control a situation through organizing every detail, keeping things in order, they might say they are organized or a detailed person, which might be true. It might also mean that it comes from a place of insecurity where they need to control everything instead of trusting in God.
Here are some questions we worked through tonight to discern what the idols of your heart are:
- What do I worry about?
- What do I use to comfort myself when life gets tough or things don’t go my way?
- What, if I lost it, would make me think life wasn’t worth living?
- What do I daydream about?
- What makes me feel the most self-worth?
- What do I lead with in conversations?
- Early on, what do I want to make sure people know about me?
- What prayer, unanswered, would seriously make me consider walking away from God?
- What do I really want and expect out of life?
- What is my hope for the future? What will complete me?
Often our lack of confidence and trust in God stems from an idol, and it keeps us from trusting, risking and experiencing all that God has for us.
