Christ vs. idols

A wise and helpful insight from Paul Tripp:

"I once was talking with a lady who had been married for many years. She was married to a person who, very honestly, I would have to say was a bad man. He was angry, controlling, and manipulative. He regularly said and did hurtful things. She, meanwhile, had dreamed of the ultimate husband and had gotten so embittered by the blessing of other women in her church that she said she could no longer go to worship. She felt as if God had forsaken her, so much so that she couldn't read her Bible or pray.

"I wanted her to understand her identity in Christ and the love of the Lord. I wanted her to understand that God is a refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble, so I quoted a few passages to her that spoke of God's amazing love when, in the middle of a verse, she said, 'Stop!' I looked up at her angry face. She said, 'Don't tell me any more that God loves me. I want a husband who loves me!

"I learned something that day. To the degree that you have based your life on something other than the Lord, to that degree God's love and the hope of the gospel will not comfort you. You will not be comforted because you are hungry for another kind of bread. You long for a king who will give you the bread you crave. That bread may be a relationship, circumstance, or position. It might be human love and respect, the desire for vengeance, or a certain economic state. It literally can be anything in creation! But there are only two types of bread: Christ the living bread, and everything else. We set our hearts either on Him or on something else."

Paul David Tripp, War of Words, pp. 97-98