Christian Living

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Exodus 20:3 – You shall have no other gods before me.

Present-day idolatry may not be the same in the ancient days when people worshiped images and statues and held elaborate ceremonies in honor of a deity or in conjuring spirits to ask for favours. Nowadays the idols we create are subtle and we unknowingly replace God with them. In our unguarded moments, some of us even blurt out we cannot live without them. We depend on these idols and forget there is God who provides for us.

My experience in this kind of idolatry was with my library. In the course of more than 20 years of development work, I collected a roomful of books and materials related to my work and fields of interest. I relied heavily on these materials and found it handy to work at home with all the references I need. It became my “extended brain” where I can retrieve materials whenever I needed them. Even my colleagues benefited from it because they would often badger me when they themselves needed some information for their work, knowing I have a well organized mini-library at home. I loved my library, became proud of it and became very protective of it. Nobody can touch it without my permission, not even my wife.

I feel adequate and confident in my consulting work knowing I have a handy reference. God however has an unusual way of calling my attention. We live in the eastern part of Manila that has a higher elevation, far from the western side of the city which is perennially flooded. In 2009, Manila was hit by Typhoon Ketsana and inundated our place for the first time. The flood waters were so high it reached the ceiling and destroyed everything inside our house. Nothing usable was left.

I feel lost and initially fear dawned on me as I looked at the things from our home including my books and materials now a heap of trash dumped outside. My library, my idol, was gone. Only then did I realize that God gives and takes away. I was a fool to depend on things and forget that He is the source of my knowledge. As we ponder on the effects of the disaster, me and my wife agreed that from that time on, we will not have emotional attachments on material things. That decision was liberating, a feeling as if I have physically smashed the idol in my life.

Today, I have no fear when something is lost because I know God will provide a replacement. A year after the typhoon, I was assigned consulting opportunities outside the Philippines. I do not have my library with me, but I have God who provided me with all the knowledge and the wisdom I needed working in different countries and different cultures. Indeed God is more than sufficient for our needs, all we have to do is allow Him to fill us.

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