Fatal Silence

"Elijah went before the people and said, "how long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.

"But the people said nothing."

1 Kings 18:21

"I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, 'Iam rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked."

Revelation 3:15-17


Our silence is often deafening and our silence may cost us our lives.

It is not so much the silence from our mouths, but the silence in our lives. Like the Israelites before the epic battle between Elijah and the prophets of Baal, we would rather wait and see how things play out. If the whole God-thing does quite work out the way we hoped for, at least we will still have the old group of friends to go back to, or a good savings account (or retirement plan) to fall back on, or a good job, or my family... or myself.

With our mouths we profess God as Lord of our lives, but we always seem to have a plan B in our back pocket. We have gods that we are unwilling to part with until we see proof that God is enough. With our mouths we say we will give up everything to follow Christ, but we are quick to add our doubts that Jesus would ever really call us to sacrifice, to let go of gods that have held our focus for so long - surely that is for someone else.

Surely He would not ask me to quit my job, or live on less, or give more than what Dave Ramsey would have me give.
Surely He wouldn't ask me to live in poverty, or in a third world country, or in a different house (especially a smaller house), or away from my family, or in an undesirable neighborhood.
Surely He wouldn't ask me to give up my vacation, or my weekend or my boat, or my car, or my tv, or my smartphone.
Surely he wouldn't want me to take foolish risks with my safety and comfort and security...

And to ourselves we think that these are not gods, and yet we have no intention of letting them go.

The more we assume that we would would never be asked to sacrifice, the more our silent choice rings in the ears of God. We can deny their godship in our lives all we want, but perhaps our inability to let them go is a contradiction. Our empty words of devotion fall from our mouths and collect in a useless pile of rubble - fool's gold for the ignorant who believe that mere words are proof enough.

He knows our deeds and hears our silence.