Talent Needed to Save the World

You should have been swaddled in the warmth of a silk palace, not wrapped in scraps, cradled in a barn by unwed parents.
Your star, the only one on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, to be placed on a brick in heaven.
Hunted by crazed fans before you learned to walk.
Talent scouts noticed you as a precocious teen, but you were despised
because you came from the wrong side of the tracks.
The gossip columns boasted of your net worth and number of followers while questioning the value of your message.
Viewers questioned your humble beginnings while ogling, like vultures, your miracles.  Water into wine, raised from the dead? ” “Give us more!”

Your hands should have been smoothed by oils and manicures callused by rough wood and splinters of service;
Protected by bodyguards, not trampled and smothered by our crowded needs.
We should have crowned you with shimmering jewels, not thorns
dripping with blood. By all accounts, you didn’t measure up.
But of course, you didn’t measure yourself by our idols.

You, O Lord, were a talented failure. Good thing you didn’t live
by man’s standards.

Idolatry is Subtle

It doesn’t always show up in the form of a figurine I bow down to. An idol, at its hollow core, is anything that I put before God.

When my son died, I was terrified of losing my other children and husband. I had to know where they were and that they were okay, and I was often unkind when my desire for security was not met. Understandable.

Idolatry emerges from dissatisfaction with God. Isn’t that at the heart of why Israel turned away from God and to worthless things again and again and why we often don’t recognize God at work in our lives?

• Exodus 32
• 1 Kings 19
• Hosea 5
• Acts 17

I need a “talent to save the world,” and Jesus just doesn’t fit the mold. He will never be rushed by our craving for immediate understanding.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways,” says Yahweh” (Isaiah 55:8 WEB).

Lord, open my eyes when I focus on the world’s view of your identity. You will never fit in my box, and I don’t want you to. You are who you say you are, and I am who you say I am. Amen

For Further Reading:

A God I Did Not Form

No Other Gods by Kelly Minter: An eye-opening look at the people and things we put before God.