Do you ever have times where a certain story or verse keeps playing through your mind? Ever stopped to consider why?
Lately, one of my favorite stories in all the Bible has been playing on a loop in my head. See, it’s the story of when the Philistines tried to put the Ark of God in the temple with their god, Dagon. They knew it was considered holy, but they had no idea what to do with it.
I guess it makes sense to put it in the temple next to our god, they thought. So, there it went…
The next morning….”THERE WAS DAGON!”
Their hand-sculpted idol of a god was toppled over on its face before the Ark of the presence of the one true God! Even the worthless piece of wood knew its proper position in the presence of the Almighty.
The Philistines had a chance to see the powerlessness of their idol, but instead they chose to do the “honorable” thing.
Oh man, how did that happen? Guess we better stand him back up! It won’t do to have people seeing our great Dagon on his face.
They stood the idol back up as if nothing had happened. The next day, the same priests come to the temple to check on their god. We better make sure everything is alright….
THERE WAS DAGON!
Flat on his face before the presence of God again! Only this time, he was missing his head and hands. His head and hands were lying on the threshold of the temple.
The people could not stand the presence of the Ark and wanted to get rid of it because they said, “his hand is heavy on us and on Dagon our god.”
Wait a minute…..
Did you catch that?
Despite powerful displays of God’s power, the people chose to send the real God away and cling to their worthless idol. In fact, they honored Dagon all the more by never stepping on the threshold of a building after this incident.
Doesn’t make much sense, right? But how often do I struggle with the same thing?
Sometimes I am so awestruck with my normal routines, identity, or things, that I don’t even realize that they have become idols. If something happens to any of them, I am quick to dust it off and stand it back up. I cling to these habits and things not realizing that the struggles are pointing me toward the power of God.
He deserves our worship, not some worthless thing of our own creation.
This story has been in my mind almost constantly since I left the Army last year. For years, I had been laser focused on becoming an officer and leading Soldiers. Even though I knew my role as a missionary with a weapon and that one day we would leave for the mission field, I was determined to be a great officer. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a surgery intended to fix my back put an end to those goals.
The transition out of the Army is always difficult because we so easily become “institutionalized” as Morgan Freeman so elegantly describes it in Shawshank Redemption. But this…this was just not fair!
Couldn’t I just serve the normal 20 years and retire then go on the mission field? Surely that would have been easier than trying to suddenly figure out “what I wanted to be when I grow up” because I needed a job to sustain us as we prepared for ministry….if that was even a true possibility anymore for a broken soldier.
Once in peak physical conditioning, I now found the ultimate test was simply putting my own shoes on in the morning. Playing through pain was just something you did for the sake of the team, but now everything was PAIN!
My identity had mistakenly and imperceptibly become tangled with the role I played as an officer. I was an athlete and leader, and now I was nothing but a bunch of raw nerve endings. It took months before I finally surrendered my heart and embraced the lesson God was teaching me.
My Dagon….my false identity…fell face down before God!
You see, my true identity was never based on athleticism, physical conditioning, the ability to lead, or any of the hundreds of descriptions of a military officer.
My identity flows from Christ and Christ alone! I am a child of God! I am formed in his image! He can use me whether I am in good health or poor, whether I can walk or bend or run. He will be honored in all the earth, and he allows me the opportunity to partner with him in his work!
The back injury is just a thorn in the flesh to remind me, like Paul, that God’s strength is sufficient for me. He gives us grace for the journey even when we do not understand.
So, what about you, are you dusting off Dagon? Or will you turn and embrace the God who knows your inmost thoughts? He loves you and longs to show you his heart!.