Well, God has called me to humility once again. On a Sunday morning when I was dreaming up a “fantastic” essay about God that “could not wait”, I stopped dead in my tracks. I had realized, with the Spirit’s help, that I was committing idolatry, even as I wrote about God. Why, He reasoned with me, was I putting aside my relationship with God to write about my idea of God? Had I asked Him what He thought about this piece? Had I checked with scripture to make sure I was correct? No. While I had a real, honest-to-god God sitting beside me, I had ceased talking to or looking at Him. I was instead focusing all the energy of my heart on the ideas that I had about Him. And so I had put my own mind before God, and slipped into worshiping myself – one of the most dangerous idols of all. Adding to that shame was the realization that while I was daydreaming, all my flesh-and-blood duties to my family were being ignored.

As I spoke about in “God with a Regular Day Job” parts 1 and 2, we as Christians serve a God that is peculiarly inclined to labor. His own Son, possessing all the power and Glory of God in human form, worked as a manual laborer for 30 years. After those 30 years, He made profound and highly intelligent speeches — punctuated by the most degrading of work. He touched lepers, washed feet, and held emotional communion with homeless prostitutes and publicly naked mentally ill persons. He was touched by people with rotting skin, STD’s, bleeding disorders, and every filthy disease you can think of (and did not shrink away from the people who had them). And, of course, in the end, He died a humiliating and disgusting death, characterized by nails, thorns, a blindfold, vinegar, chains, and lead-tipped whips… Even a list of the instruments used gives me a shudder. With this kind of example in mind, I feel that artistic expression, though important to me, cannot replace genuine God-to-Person prayer; also, it should not be given a place higher than laundry, packed lunches, and schoolwork, because all work done for God is to His glory, especially when it is humble and done for other people.

God Bless you, and have a good weekend.
– Morgan Hart

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