Seeing the Unseen

Psalm 115:8

“Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.”

Humans have a tendency to believe only when we see. Social media has capitalized on this. From any social media app or site, you can find plenty of things to see. Those images and videos have been perfectly crafted to grab your attention and hold it. Even worse, those of us who spend more time than we should scan through these sites and begin to create the same images and videos, hoping that others will like them or comment on them. It is not all bad, many of the sites help a lot of people find great places to eat and also warn everyone of not-so-great, overemphasized places. What if we took a small detour into what we cannot see?

You cannot see the wind, but you feel the effects of it. You cannot see the cold, but we see what it does to things we can see. You cannot see the coronavirus, but it shut down the world and caused many to fear for their own lives. Plenty of real things we cannot see affect us every day.

David is speaking in Psalm 115 to those who create idols. He says they have all the parts, but nothing works, hands, feet, mouth, nose, but these idols don’t speak, walk, or smell. In other words, these idols are replicas built by humans that seem to take us from our place of want into a place of plenty and blessing. Beware of creating such idols.

Your idol may be alone time, shopping, video games, obsessive behavior, and so on. Anything in your life you choose to put in place of trusting the Lord is an idol. In the New Testament, Jesus tells us to “have faith in God.” Tony Evans points out that He did not stop at “have faith.” The majority of people we see every day have plenty of faith, they just stop there at faith.

You have to have faith in the Lord, whom you cannot see or create. The Israelites had to continually sing that our God is in heaven to remind themselves not to trust in the things made by this world that replace God. Today, realize that if you have idols in your life, the Bible says you become like them, having all the parts, but nothing works. Our only answer is trusting the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the author and finisher of our faith. I would rather be caught trusting the Lord and laboring than putting my faith in my own hands. God is a God of “what are the odds.” He is waiting for you to trust Him.

Prayer: Father, help us to identify the idols we have erected in our lives and to put them in their proper place, below the reverence of You. Help us to replace these idols with faith in You and Your promises we read about in Your Word. In Jesus’ name, amen.