Just go kill it.

These words from Matt’s sermon have not stopped ringing in my ears, “If there is a dream that is separating you from God, just go kill it.”

Time and time again, the Lord asks us, his children, to cast away our idols and turn to him. One of the many times he asks this is in Genesis 35. God asks Jacob to go Bethel, a place of remembrance and praise, and make an altar to him.

“Time and time again, the Lord asks us, his children, to cast away our idols and turn to him.”

“And Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, ‘Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, and change your garments’” (Genesis 35:2). Jacob remembers the God who had answered him in times of trouble, goes back to that place of remembrance, and buries the idols under a tree.

If you trust him, just go kill it.

To say this is easier said than done is more than an understatement. My struggle with idols looks a lot like a game of cat and mouse. Sometimes I’m the cat—stalking my idols, becoming consumed with the thought of attaining them, thinking that once I hold them in my clutches, I can rest easy. Other times I’m the mouse—running as fast as I can but knowing my idols are still looming around the corner, easily accessible and ready to capture me if I were to turn a few steps back. But, at the end of the day, attaining comfort or control won’t give me true rest, only the Lord will. And he has. He has met me in my brokenness too many times to count and carried me.

Just like Jacob’s remembrance at Bethel, the Lord calls us to remember the places of his faithfulness—to remember his might in the midst of our weakness. And from this remembrance, we are called to trust. To trust that God’s goodness is better than our comfort and that God’s sovereignty is better than our control.

“To fully trust in him, we must let go of every idol we have been trusting in—our finances, our relationships, our health.”

To fully trust in him, we must let go of every idol we have been trusting in—our finances, our relationships, our health. We must open our hands wide so that we have no means of clinging to these idols anymore. And then, in a final declaration of our allegiance, we must kill them.

If you trust him, just go kill it.

My tendency is to let my idols fall at my feet, only to pick them back up and put them in my pocket. There, they are easily accessible and can be within my grasp in mere moments. This is not what God asks of us. He asks for all of us. He asks us to lay down our idols and kick them aside for true life found only in Him.