2 Kings 23:4-25
When I first stepped into Alcoholics Anonymous, I had no intention of doing the things that I now look back on and go, "Wow."
I never planned on having my whole concept of God turned upside down. I
never planned on going back to people I'd harmed over the years and
making things right. I never thought that the solution for my battle
with alcohol would have been worked out on a spiritual plane. I figured I
just needed to learn how to stop drinking and I'd be good to go.
Alcohol was my Altar. I worshiped it every chance I got. Sometimes, I would literally get on my knees or lay prostrate, as the poison made its way throughout my bloodstream. The spirits would overcome me and I would become invincibly heroic, or mad, or anti-social. I lost the power of choice in the matter, crossed a line that had once been so obvious. Now, I couldn't not drink.
After about two years of a head full of A.A. and a heart full of misery, I realized that the alcohol was just a physical altar. It was a physical symptom of a much bigger, inward problem. The physical altar was merely an illumination of a much deeper inward altar - one that would be much harder to kick than the alcohol itself. It went deeper than the misery and depression. It went deeper than the anger. It went so deep that I couldn't have found the condition on my own. That's when I needed help.
King Josiah did some altar cleaning himself. In fact, he went all throughout Israel and smashed shrines, burned them down to ashes, and spread them in the Valley of Kidron. He did this for over ten years. And when he finished, he commanded the people of Israel to celebrate the Passover - that memorial of deliverance. The celebratory remembrance of God's deliverance.
For Josiah, destroying altars wasn't the means to the end. It was the first step in a process of heart change. Taking the altars away wouldn't have changed minds and hearts. Yet, it was needed in order to get to the heart change. The altars needed to be smashed and destroyed in order to get to the celebration of deliverance.
When I finally dove headfirst into A.A. and the twelve steps, the outlook looked doomed. However, the more I did work on my inside, the brighter everything outside became.
Physical altars are a symptom of inward altars, and unless we smash the physical we can't see inward. When we get inward, we find death preceding resurrection. We find a funeral preceding a party. Yes, it's a painful process. But, as we learn to live life without the altars we've become so accustomed to sacrificing to, we begin to see a reason to party - to celebrate. We begin to experience a real-time version of deliverance, a deliverance that's much bigger than us. Our lives begin to shape and form as we come out of our once permanent graves and walk into the sunlight for the first time.
So, behind every physical altar, there's a more subtle inward altar. If we can get the help we need to smash our inward altars, we will be celebrating soon! Life will become the party we'd never had. God will become the Deliverer to us, when once we thought that God was a far off being that had enough stuff to worry about.
Altar of Alcohol: Smashed ---------> Altar of Unforgiveness, Altar of Shame, Altar of the Fear of God: Being Smashed
Altar of Porn: Still sacrificing
Altar of Control: Still sacrificing
Altar of Cigarettes: Still sacrificing
What are/were your physical altars? Did they illuminate your inward altars?
Today's Action: Make a list of our physical altars.
Alcohol was my Altar. I worshiped it every chance I got. Sometimes, I would literally get on my knees or lay prostrate, as the poison made its way throughout my bloodstream. The spirits would overcome me and I would become invincibly heroic, or mad, or anti-social. I lost the power of choice in the matter, crossed a line that had once been so obvious. Now, I couldn't not drink.
After about two years of a head full of A.A. and a heart full of misery, I realized that the alcohol was just a physical altar. It was a physical symptom of a much bigger, inward problem. The physical altar was merely an illumination of a much deeper inward altar - one that would be much harder to kick than the alcohol itself. It went deeper than the misery and depression. It went deeper than the anger. It went so deep that I couldn't have found the condition on my own. That's when I needed help.
King Josiah did some altar cleaning himself. In fact, he went all throughout Israel and smashed shrines, burned them down to ashes, and spread them in the Valley of Kidron. He did this for over ten years. And when he finished, he commanded the people of Israel to celebrate the Passover - that memorial of deliverance. The celebratory remembrance of God's deliverance.
For Josiah, destroying altars wasn't the means to the end. It was the first step in a process of heart change. Taking the altars away wouldn't have changed minds and hearts. Yet, it was needed in order to get to the heart change. The altars needed to be smashed and destroyed in order to get to the celebration of deliverance.
When I finally dove headfirst into A.A. and the twelve steps, the outlook looked doomed. However, the more I did work on my inside, the brighter everything outside became.
Physical altars are a symptom of inward altars, and unless we smash the physical we can't see inward. When we get inward, we find death preceding resurrection. We find a funeral preceding a party. Yes, it's a painful process. But, as we learn to live life without the altars we've become so accustomed to sacrificing to, we begin to see a reason to party - to celebrate. We begin to experience a real-time version of deliverance, a deliverance that's much bigger than us. Our lives begin to shape and form as we come out of our once permanent graves and walk into the sunlight for the first time.
So, behind every physical altar, there's a more subtle inward altar. If we can get the help we need to smash our inward altars, we will be celebrating soon! Life will become the party we'd never had. God will become the Deliverer to us, when once we thought that God was a far off being that had enough stuff to worry about.
Altar of Porn: Still sacrificing
Altar of Control: Still sacrificing
Altar of Cigarettes: Still sacrificing
What are/were your physical altars? Did they illuminate your inward altars?
Today's Action: Make a list of our physical altars.
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