Rest

But God is full of compassion

Isaiah 44:6, 10 This is what the Lord says—Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies: “I am the First and the Last; there is no other God. … Who but a fool would make his own god—an idol who cannot help him one bit?”

James 5:11 The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.

On my trip home from Colombia, I read a book called And I His Servant by Dr. Dick Hillis, the founder of our mission organization, OC International. It’s a collection of his stories, many of them about his experiences in Asia beginning in 1933. (Dr. Hillis’s biography is also available, called Steel in His Soul.)

One chapter, “Sincerely Yours,” would fit neatly into Isaiah 44. Dr. Hillis describes the process of making a mud idol, then says this:

But before I made a further judgment about their sanity, I decided to ask why the people bowed before these idols. “Madam,” I said, “for the last ten minutes you have been on your knees bowing before this deity. Would you please tell me why?”

“Sir,” she replied. “My husband is out of work. My children are hungry. The landlord has threatened to throw us out. My burdens are heavy and I am asking for help.”

“And you, Sir,” I said. …

“We have seven children. The youngest is two weeks old. Her mother is very sick. The midwife can’t stop her bleeding. She has a fever and won’t eat and I am afraid for my children and their mother’s life.”

The answer to why people bow before gods who have eyes and cannot see and ears and cannot hear, is simple. They have burdens they cannot carry and fears they cannot quiet. They have never met the One who said, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28-30).

It occurs to me today that perhaps we create idols—likely not made of wood or mud, but rather of other things that matter more to us than the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord of Heaven’s Armies—for the same reasons: burdens we cannot carry and fears we cannot quiet. We deny, numb, and distract ourselves with our choices of addictions and indulgences, but nothing is really solved or healed. We fight for our independence only to discover we’re not capable of managing life all by ourselves.

And the Lord says to us with compassion, “Come to Me. I will give you rest.”