Testimony Tuesday -- Casting Down Idols

From Esther Belin:

 

I have lived in the Durango community for 17 years and it is now my home. However calling this area my home has taken about 8 years.  I moved to this area from Santa Fe with my husband and two young children.  It wasn’t until a couple of weeks that I realized that I moved here with many selfish desires and expectations.  I came with my own agenda, my own plan to true fulfillment. Part of that plan included living the Durango dream – owning a half-million dollar home, being the perfect public school volunteer, securing a leisure, well-paying job.  I know now that I started building this high place of pride/expectation/comfort/covetousness ever since I was a little girl.  Durango just happened to be the place that everything came together – I was married with children – so the next step (in my mind) was to cash in the idol I had been so faithfully building and worshiping.  

Needless to say, I carried this high place to each home we lived in – placing it in a prominent area – careful not to damage it with each move.  We are now in our 5^th location.  With God’s grace, we were able to buy a home 3 years ago.  When we bought this home and land, I dedicated it to the Lord – continually asking Him to use it for His glory.  Since then, I have been tested.  We’ve had problems with our well the first two years, then last spring I lost my job.  The enemy was feeding me lies that God gave us the wrong house, the wrong location, wrong everything.  I realize now that I have been prolonging God’s blessing by my disobedience.  About 2 weeks ago while baking, I ended up shattering a baking dish that symbolically represented my high places.  That baking dish was quality glass and ornately crafted – representing all the luxury and comfort I believed I deserved, and when it shattered, there was such an amazing grief that overcame me.  Such an immediate emotional drain hovered over me that I verbally told God to tell me what this shattering meant.  

At the time, I had been studying about the Israelites and their 40 years in the wilderness.  And I knew instantly that God allowed that treasured dish (my high places) to shatter so completely that there was no way I could rebuild – and there was no way that I would longingly gaze at my Promised Land for 38 years!  God was telling me loud and clear that He is waiting for me to live the abundant life HE has planned for me. God was telling me that this journey through the wilderness is to test my faith, that He will provide, that He will protect (defend), that HE wants me to follow him, that He is waiting for me to live in belief of HIS promises.  

That day I grieved.  I grieved that I wasted so much time/energy on building my high places.  I grieved that I displeased God, that so much of my life here in Durango was built around this idol.  That day I committed to grieve in God’s presence – to be near His holy mountain – to rest in His salvation – to finally be in the comfort of HIS refuge.

Deuteronomy 12:2

You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree.

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