Daily Worship

My people, don’t be fashioned into the image of your own idols

Pete Phillips June 03, 2025 2 0
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Psalm 115: 4-8 (NIVUK)

4 But their idols are silver and gold,
    made by human hands.
5 They have mouths, but cannot speak,
    eyes, but cannot see.
6 They have ears, but cannot hear,
    noses, but cannot smell.
7 They have hands, but cannot feel,
    feet, but cannot walk,
    nor can they utter a sound with their throats.
8 Those who make them will be like them,
    and so will all who trust in them.

This is a Psalm for our time. I guess all the Psalms are for our time. But this Psalm puts a voice to the fear of simply becoming what we have created. A puppet master becoming a puppet. A soldier becoming a corpse. An artist becoming a statue. The Roman poet, Ovid, wrote a lengthy poem on people becoming transformed by the object they desired. His Metamorphoses focussed on the power of turning into that very thing which we idolize, which we fashion.

The psalm warns the reader not to become senseless idols – idols without speech, hearing, sight, smell, touch, movement, speech – the very senses that God has given us, the very senses which the Gospel writers talk of Jesus giving to those who have without. The Psalm warns us not to become the senseless idols we might worship. But instead to trust in God – three times repeated. It is God who gives us our senses, our perceptions, our creativity in the very way we experience his world. We are all different but we are all fashioned individually as sense-able people and technology can enhance those senses too. But here we are warned not to be fashioned in the image of senseless idols. Not to lose our senses, not to ignore the world we sense around us, not to become statues of stone, or steel, or nothingness. Sense God’s world. Sense God. Today.

 

Activity:

 

Which is your best sense? Which do you think is your weakest? Try to focus today on your weaker senses or perceptions of God’s world. You might not see very well, so how could you focus on seeing God’s world today. You may have a great sense of hearing, so how can you hear God in the world today? You may have perfect balance, can you walk a tightrope on the way to work? Your senses, your imagination, sensing God.

 

Prayer:

 

Dear God, let me breathe in your Spirit, your ruach, your life.

Let me know your breath within me, not an idol, not a statue, not an image.

Let me be your beloved child. Let me know your love in new ways, today.