I have the great privilege of living in a beautiful city. And yet, it is also a city riddled with physical idols. Though it is striking and disheartening to see the empty worship that often accompanies them, part of my sorrow is being struck by the “sameness” of my own heart, the sinful nature I share that is constantly seeking someone or something to worship other than the one for whom I was made.
One of the discipleship tools I have used the most over the past few years is The Gospel Centered Life by Robert Thune and Will Walker. I have probably gone through this study guide about 30 times with various women in the last six years. Though I’ve been through the material time and again, I have found that every time I am freshly convicted as I see areas where the good news of Christ is still moving from my head to my heart. One of the strengths of this study is how accurately it depicts the idols that so quickly captivate our hearts, the ones that we can dismiss much more easily because we do not literally bow before them when we wake in the morning.
As believers in Jesus, we can genuinely affirm with our mouths and truly believe that there is no God but the Lord and yet continue to struggle with competing objects of worship in our own hearts. The Spirit of God is kind to patiently reveal areas where we bow before thrones other than his. For many years, he has been my gentle, firm, clear, and patient Good Shepherd in revealing my heart’s chosen idol: the approval of people.
I really want people to like me. And I really want people to think I’m doing a good job at whatever it is I’m doing (even writing this article). Where does this desire come from? Because evil is unoriginal (in that God created all good things to be good before Satan and our sin could twist and distort them), I know that any desire I have is actually rooted in something that is originally good for me by his own creation design. However, since my father Adam fell, I have been born sinful alongside every other human, and my sin desires much less for myself than that for which I was made. I was created to bask in the approval, the “well done,” of my Triune Creator. Yet, I feel I would be content if I could merely obtain a lifetime guarantee of impressing and pleasing my family, my bosses, or my fellow church members. As C.S. Lewis has so poignantly shared, the problem is not in having desires themselves but that my sin-twisted desire is ridiculously puny.
C S Lewis says it best: “It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
Our God clearly knows the proclivity of our hearts to such sinful naivety when he speaks through the prophet Jeremiah. In speaking of the evils of his people he says, “they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jer 2:13).
The first step toward wholeness in Christ is recognition of my sinful heart idol. Indeed, I am the child making mud pies when a holiday at sea has been offered. I am the woman foolishly hewing out a cistern for myself, foolish to the fact that it is broken and cannot hold water. This is who I show myself to be every time I find my heart desperate for the approval of others. I have seen this desire of my flesh in many ways during my earthly pilgrimage, and the evil subtlety is that it can thrive in ministry settings.
I might give a devotion to a group of ladies and find myself immediately obsessing over its reception. Did the woman present, who knows her Bible and is a more gifted teacher, approve of my presentation? I correct my child according to my conscience in front of church members and immediately find myself scanning their expressions. Do they approve of my parenting? I receive an email from a co-worker that seems a bit off and wonder what I might have done to provoke such a response. Do they approve of my work? And then, just to shed light a bit on the often accompanying idol of control, my next temptation is often to desperately “fix” any area where I might not have gained approval. In places where I feel I have lost or even risked losing approval, I go into overdrive mode to correct, to clarify, to keep what I feel I must possess.
Tim Keller gives us a very helpful definition of heart idols in his book Counterfeit Gods. He says that “idols give us a sense of being in control, and we can locate them by looking at our nightmares: What do we fear the most? What if we lost it would make life not worth living?” For my heart, the answer to this is so often the approval of others. I think that gaining and keeping their “I like you” and “well done” will make me happy. I so often find myself hewing out cisterns to drink “water” that I hope will fill me, only to be left dry and panting.
Again, the first step is recognition, but it is not the last. Upon seeing my heart that so desperately wants approval and experiencing godly sorrow over my idolatry, repentance by grace must then lead to my turning toward what is better. To repent is not just to see my idolatry and hate it but to see Jesus and love him. How does the child making mud pies stop this silly activity for something better? He has to actually go on the holiday to the sea. How does the individual drinking from a broken cistern quench his thirst? He needs to look next to him and see the fountain of living water that is freely given. How do I go from a desperate and unhappy pursuit for the approval of my fellow image bearers? I need to taste and see the approval for which I was actually made—the approval of my God: my Father, my Elder Brother, and my Helper.
God created me to know that he delights in me. He made me to long for and receive his “well done.” He crafted us and said we were good—there was no lack of his approval in the ones he formed. He gave me everything in a garden of plenty, the chief gift being himself and a full share in his overflowing joy. And yet, I gave into the lie of the enemy with my first parent, Adam—the lie that maybe I could grasp a better gift for myself, that maybe the approval of other creatures could actually fill my heart more than that of my Maker.
If the story ended here, it would indeed be tragic, with my heart damned to the inevitable curse of drinking from a broken jar the rest of my days, always thirsting but never satisfied. But, it mercifully continues. God the Son has also forever become Jesus, the man. He came to our world of sin and shame, and he perfectly basked in his Father’s approval alone. He knew the sadness of the rejection of men, and yet he never bowed to the idol of acquiring their approval. He knew he was loved by his Father, and his heart was and is fully content in him. Having lived out a life of pure worship to God, he was nailed to a tree. The approved Son became the rejected Son. The Son with whom the Father was well pleased became the Son who the Father condemned. The only man who perfectly delighted in his Father’s approval alone lost this approval, voluntarily taking on all the shame of one who is despised and not esteemed. And the only man who actually deserved the approval of the only One who matters gave up his glory for our shame.
We sin by longing for everyone’s approval but the Father’s, which actually disapproves us before this Father’s eternal throne, meriting eternal death. Christ suffered throughout his earthly life, culminating in his death, bearing our guilt and shame, and he obeyed the Father, longing only for his approval, thereby earning righteousness for us and securing our Father’s approval that we could never earn ourselves.
The approval Christ has earned for us is the Father’s delight to now pour out freely (not miserly) and joyfully (not begrudgingly) to his people by his Spirit. So, I can have hope when I see my heart’s proneness to the idol of people’s approval. When the “worst” happens, and I learn that I have actually lost the approval of even a dearest relation, I am free to grieve without devastation. Because of what Christ has done and his continual work of intercession for me, I have my Father’s genuine approval and delight. His smile is truly more than enough.
Photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash
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