Idol Time

One of the virtues of getting older is watching my idols get old too, decayed, and ultimately destroyed. Not by dynamite but by diminution. Idols are less tempting when one has a of long history with them. Time is usually one of the best tests. Relationships, goods, investments, education. The time test.

An idol that I have really struggled until recently was competitive sports, specifically basketball--but also rugby to some degree. Basketball became the test of my value and worth. The scoreboard and scorebook dictating whether I was a winner or loser depending on my stats and the final score. The story is long of basketball losing its power over me. Like the untying a nasty shoelace knot and it has taken decades. Over 30 years. Bad knee, two surgeries, rehab, trying to become the man on whatever court I happened to be on. College, Rec League.

So many young men succumb to this athletic idol...only to become TV sports watching middle-aged men with empty souls and big guts.  

It was only until a couple of month ago (mind you that I am 51) when I threw out my high-top Nikes that the clay-footed idol of basketball finally lost its power. Now, when my knee hurts, I go to a place of "so what." Before when my knee ached, it was under-girding the ego edifice of the athletic idol even though I rarely played competitive basketball . The physical pain had a psychological toll far beyond the actual weight in time and space. I had to throw the shoes out as if to exorcise the Devil. Finally, after all of these years, from the dark closet of my heart.  

I have had other idols...sex, having a beautiful girlfriend, getting married to a high-flying woman, earning a Ph.D. and education/intellectual attainment, writing a book, among others. Since I am on the back-end of every one of these, like a roller coaster coming to a stop after the ride, I look back and see how these expectations and hope I had placed in these idols really hurt me and others. Somehow, I thought God had a duty to co-sign these idolatrous arrangements. I am quite ashamed that I was so unwise and allowed the forces of evil to entrap me with the expectation bait. Once the Devil gets you to roll his loaded dice of the world, there is no way to win and no way out except to push away from the table and say game over. Quit.  

The danger I face now is just to coast. To avoid taking on any big causes but to just meander through life. I have found dreams to be dangerous and destructive, but this has much more to do with what the underlying assumptions were of my dreams. Time has revealed them to be not entirely of God. It takes a lot of honesty to see ourselves for who were are. We think of ourselves better that the facts support. I had mixed motives and the shaking of what remains--and there is some--is what was done for the right reasons. Thankfully there is some gold in the dross. Every one of the idols I had were not intrinsically wrong. It made it harder for me discern them because they were undercover. There are idols that are wrong from any angle and then there are idols that would be a non-idolatrous good if they were viewed in a less egocentric and more selfless light.

The grace of God can be the withholding of what will ultimately bad for us, no matter how much we whine. God says No. A hard No. And when we accept that His No is really a Yes to what we really need, then we can live free and love without that expectation of return.