An Unexpected Idol

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

I recently discovered an embarrassing fact: I am technologically co-dependent.

This week, the internet and phone service went down at my office and I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was as if the Stone Age was back and I was grunting around, scribbling on walls with shale and hunting food with my bare hands.

If the outage had continued, I was sure I’d be reading papyrus by candlelight and writing my sermon with a feather quill pen. What’s worse is that it made me ornery and whiny. I complained so much that my wife and assistant began plotting an intervention on A&E. It was pretty ridiculous.

I read something in Gospel in Life by Tim Keller the other day that said whatever you can’t live without or fear losing the most is an idol. Ouch. Could technology be an idol at some level for me? It’s unexpected but true.

Admitting we’re idolators is tough. It’s hard to acknowledge that we value tangible, materialistic things, relationships and the temporal more than our Creator. That we are shamelessly sold out to these same things.

Jesus said, “whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” What can you not live without more than Christ? What do you fear losing the most? Chances are it is an unexpected idol.