Joy and Idolatry

Call me a nerd, but I've always loved school. After a four-year break from studying and homework, I enrolled in a private art school last December. Butterflies - no, leaping kangaroos- filled my stomach for the next month and half I was forced to wait before classes started.

I'd felt unfulfilled,bored, and tired for so long. Because my work days were unchallenging and uninteresting, I spent my evenings at home feeling miserable and frustrated. I expected my first day back in school to change all those things, to cancel out the grey I perceived in my life. With school in sight, I had hope in sight.

My first quarter back in school is more than halfway done. Final projects are being assigned and the last pages of textbooks are being read. Now that the initial excitement and enthusiasm of school has been replaced by reality, I've been able to think more carefully about this whole hope thing.

I still love going to school and I enjoy all of my classes. I have gotten some of the artistic release I'd been needing and that my admissions officer promised. Its been a wonderful experience so far. I still love school and there's probably no changing that.

On my way home after class one night, I began to wonder, "What comes after this?" I have a good 3.75 years to go before I finish school, but if this is what's filling me now, what's going to fill me when its over? I can't afford to pay for school that lasts for the rest of life. And what would be the point of perpetual education, anyway?

Thinking that made me realize the horrible sin I'd falling into. In such a short time, I had turned something good into something abominable by letting it take the place that rightfully belongs to God. I'd turned education into an idol.

There is obviously nothing wrong with seeking higher education, new skills, or artistic release but I had put my hope for joy in those things instead of trusting God to give me the joy I so badly craved. Looking at it now, its silliness is so visible.

Can anything be more obvious to a Christian than the fact that God is the only source, the only provider of infinite, eternal, complete joy? Nothing else will fill that desire for joy like God can. Nothing else will give the kind of joy that will last beyond time. Trusting in anything else is idolatry.