The summer of 2022 wasn’t going well. After avoiding Covid-19 for two years, my wife and I both came down with it on the first day of our vacation. We had to cancel plans to attend a friend’s wedding, which meant we needed to pay the non-refundable, full cost of a mountain retreat. We returned home, but only after infecting long-time friends we visited that first day.
My research also wasn’t going as well as I’d hoped; I wasn’t getting the results I wanted. And I got rear-ended while sitting at a traffic light. The damage was minor, but my rental car needed repairs, and I didn’t get the other driver’s insurance info. None of these was very serious, but I still felt depressed.
At the time, I was reading Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers by Dane Ortlund. As I read, I wondered why I had been feeling depressed? Why had I failed to comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s love? Why couldn’t I just enjoy and bask in the heart of Christ, as Ortlund encourages the reader to do?
The answer was I needed to go to Jesus; I needed a fresh reminder of the gospel.
On the same day that I finished reading Gentle and Lowly, I also read 1 Thessalonians 1, wherein Paul writes: “For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.” What demonstrated the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing the gospel to the Thessalonians in power, with full conviction? “…[Y]ou turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, ….”
When the gospel comes “in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction,” there is a turning from idols to Jesus. Reading Ortlund’s simple reminder – go to Jesus – and Paul’s commendation of the Thessalonians for turning to God from idols, I realized that my feelings of depression were caused by my idols that kept me from appreciating God’s love.
God used the circumstances of the summer to expose my idols – desires for “smooth sailing,” no inconveniences, good health, greater success in my research, and no unnecessary financial losses. As Tim Keller observes in Counterfeit Gods, good things that become ultimate things (things that we desire more than we desire God himself) are idols that ultimately destroy us.
As I went to Jesus, confessing and repenting of these idols, a burden was lifted. I once again felt the assurance of his immeasurable love.
I have sometimes let these and similar idols silence me. They stand in the way of obeying the call of Christ to deny myself and follow him, to be a witness and an ambassador, and to make disciples in the university.
The summer of 2022 reminded me that taking up the cross and following Jesus is a daily exercise. But it also reminded me of the great joy and delight in feeling the assurance of Christ’s love and having the burden of worry fall away.
Tim Cameron
Mechanical Engineering
Miami University