When you think of an idol what comes to mind?
Bronze statues? Famous people? Your phone, television, or game system?

Those can all become idols in your life. Last year I learned about a different type of idol. Something I had never thought could be an idol. My desires.

In the Bible it says that the Lord will give you the desires of your heart. So how can my desires be an idol? How can they be bad for me in terms of my relationship with God?

Psalm 37:4-5
Delight yourself in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in the Him, and He shall bring it to pass.

Yes, God will grant us the desires of our hearts. However, there are two actions in these verses as well.

1. Delight yourself in the Lord.
   – Delight means to take great pleasure in or to give keen enjoyment.
   – Our pleasure comes from the Lord, He is the only one who can fully satisfy all of our us.
   – He should be our source of joy and hope. Nothing on this earth can fulfill that.
   
2. Commit your way to the Lord.
   – Commit can mean to carry into action deliberately, to pledge or assign to, or to put to charge or trust.
   – According to the Strong’s Concordance the Hebrew word galal in this use can mean ‘compare.
   – So in committing to the Lord we deliberately choose to pledge our lives and trust in Him.
   – Also, it means to compare our ways to His. So, we are thoroughly aligning ourselves with His ways in the process.

An idol is an object of extreme devotion. When it comes to your relationship with God an idol is anything and everything that you desire more than you desire God.

My desire to be married, have a relationship with someone here on earth, to have more kids (before I feel like I’m too old to have anymore), someone to take some of the financial load off my shoulders, became something I desired more than I desired God. I wasn’t aligning myself with His ways in the process. While none of these are naturally bad things, I didn’t have my priorities aligned with His Word.

God should be the number one thing in our lives, above all else. Our relationship with Him is vital to everything else in our lives. Matthew 6:33 says, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” He must be in first place for blessings to flow in your life.

God loves you so much that He wants to give us the desires of our heart. He also loves us enough to make us do a priority check every now and then. When He is number one in our lives, our desires align with His and He can bless us with the desires of our hearts. He wants you to want a relationship with Him. The Father wants you to love Him so deeply, nothing else can take His place.

In order to fully receive the blessings He has for us, we have to be willing to lay down everything we have put before Him. Those things aren’t necessarily bad, such as our careers, our spouses, and our children, but they can’t be put into the top slot meant for our King.

When our priorities are straight, He moves in our lives. In the hills and the valleys, He proves time and time again that He has our best interest at heart. We can trust Him and fully open our hearts to what He has for us.

🩷 Nikki

Dear Father,

I give you all the honor and glory that I can. It will never be an adequate representation of who You are, but I choose to give You the best of me. You deserve every breath that I breath and every word that I speak.

I pray that you open my eyes to any idols I have knowingly or unknowingly placed above you in my life. You deserve the highest place in my heart and only You can fulfill everything inside of me. I pray that You cover my mind and my heart in every season and allow me to align with Your Word and Your ways all the days of my life.

Help me to delight in You and commit to Your ways everyday as I continue to become the woman of God that You have created me to be.

Fulfill Your purpose and will in my life. I lay it all at Your feet.

Amen