Idols...are we "worshiping" our kids?

“An idol is anything in my life that occupies a place that should be occupied by God alone. An idol is something that holds such a controlling position in my life that it moves and rouses and attracts me so easily that I give my time, attention and money to it effortlessly.” – Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones



A friend shared this today and it started me thinking about when I first began to understand the idols in my life. I was involved in a ladies Bible study where we went through the book, "Idols of the Heart".

I had never been exposed to this concept and as I saw the connection between my mind, heart, emotions and idolatry it floored me. I think we see idols as obvious "replacements" for God....money, power etc. but we don't see the other things ( good things) that we make idols of. Our children are one area where we tend to idolize the most as women, I think. We want the best for them. We want their love and respect. These are good.

An idol is anything that you place above God in your life. When your child is in disobedience (ultimately to God) but you want their affection enough to with hold correction then you have made that your God. If you are willing to sin to get something, it is an idol.

I have heard people (and society tells us) that your child's comfort, self esteem etc. are the most important things. To make your child sad or uncomfortable is viewed as unloving. The Word says that if you do not discipline then you hate your child. We are commanded to require our children to adhere, not to our rules, but to Gods perfect standard. This is to honor our Lord and to point our children to their need of a savior.

As our children grow older, it is easy to buy into the world view on parenting to the point that we avoid confrontation to preserve relationship with them and so fail to "speak the truth in love". We are afraid of alienating them. We don't force them to face the natural consequences of their actions at times because we want to preserve their comfort and happiness. None of this is truly loving and it is causing us to place them above the God who has given us His commands and principles. He must be our authority and under that umbrella then we are the authority for our children.

In the end they will be ill equipped for a world that is not going to coddle them and where they will face great consequences if they have had to much freedom, authority and have been able to believe that the "world revolves around them". We see this in a generation who wants to be entertained constantly, has little respect for authority and very poor work ethics.

I also see too much deference to children in general. I have witnessed "child centered homes" which causes the parents to ultimately be in subjection to the wishes of their children verses the proper order. If we do this we are taking God off the throne of our lives and our homes and replacing Him with our child what ever age they they are.There is the idol.

God tells us to put Him first because first of all he deserves that place. He is God. His way however benefits us as well. It will go well with us and our children when we give Him first place and have no idols before Him.