Can't find the trophy though. I think the last time I saw it, it was broken. That's the problem with trophies. Just ask the University of Alabama football team. They won it all this year - including the national champion trophy. It's a $30,000 Waterford crystal football. Well, it was.
Over the weekend, a player's father somehow knocked it off its stand. It's not a crystal football anymore. It's a million little pieces.
Once again, that's the problem with trophies. They break.
All of life's prizes ultimately shatter and disappoint us. I remember one player on a past national champion football team saying how depressed he was the day after his sports dream had come true. "When I saw that front page headline about us winning, all I could think was - 'My god just died.'"
Sounds like Alexander the Great. By the age of 33, he had conquered the then known world. A ton of trophies. But instead of being elated, he reportedly was darkly depressed. When an officer asked him why, he simply said, "I have no more worlds to conquer."
One way or another, life's trophies seem to shatter on us - if not in this life, then when we stand before Jesus. Oh, before we have our trophies in our hand, they look like they're worth whatever we need to do to have it. But then, they disappoint, they disillusion, they disappear. Like that football trophy, they're just so breakable.
I suspect we all have a "trophy" we have pursued or are pursuing. Greatness in your career...recognition by some people or group that means a lot to you...a championship...a scholarship...a relationship...financial security...raising "superkids"...a dream home...a dream job...a dream person.
The problem is that trophies tend to become idols. Something or someone that pushes God from the center of your life to the margins...that gets the best of your time, your talent, your treasure.
I've been giving a lot of thought lately to something John Calvin said - that the human heart is an idol-making factory. Even your work for God can, at times, become an idol that usurps God's throne in your life. Your ministry can subtly become your master rather than your vehicle for loving Jesus. And suddenly you've got an idol, all wrapped up in Christian garb.
Trophies shatter because they become too important to us. It's the Demas syndrome. The Apostle Paul described Demas as his "fellow worker" (Colossians 4:14), a valued spiritual soldier. But then, in Paul's greatest hour of need, "Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world" (2 Timothy 4:10).
God loves us too much to let our idols stand. When the Old Testament Philistines hijacked God's sacred Ark of the Covenant, they "set it beside (their god) Dagon." When they went to the temple the next day, "there was Dagon fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord." After they had set poor little Dagon up again, the next morning they found him "with his head and hands broken off, lying on the threshold" (1 Samuel 5:1-4). It's got to be really disturbing to find your god without his head!
But when something becomes an idol, it's going to break on you. Because "those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs" (Jonah 2:8).
Looking back, I see the broken pieces of some shattered trophies. And the wonderful discovery I've found in those fragments.
The only real treasure is Christ.
| The failure of our other "gods" points the way to the true God we were made by and made for. The God Jesus died to reunite us with. If you're tired of the disappointment and dissatisfaction, your heart is ready for Jesus. Which makes this a good time for you to visit our website, YoursForLife.net, where you'll find what the Bible says about belonging to Jesus. I hope you'll stop by. |