When my sons were young and required much maintenance, I pretty much hated life when my husband had to be away on business trips. Many single parents handle life with admirable strength, but during those times when I was temporarily forced to be both Mom and Dad, my feet just didn’t feel big enough to fill both pairs of shoes.
There are some essential parental roles I’m not very good at – one is the Fixer of Broken Things. I can pump my own gas and change light bulbs, but when my husband is gone, well, we just pray that all things mechanical and electrical don’t break down.
I am also woefully ill-equipped to be the Cleaner-Upper of Gross Domestic Mishaps. Once when Joe was out of town for a week, one of my sons came down with a stomach bug in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, it was the son who was sleeping on the top bunk. Can anybody say, “Niagra Falls?” Knowing that my steel-stomached husband could not ride up on his white horse to rescue me from this disgusting catastrophe, I prayed for Jesus to come back. He didn’t.
A friend told me that several years ago, her husband had to go on a business trip that kept him away from home for three weeks. Their daughters missed him terribly and one day, the oldest little girl appeared carrying a paper cut-out of a man just about as big as she was. She announced, “Look! I made a Paper Daddy. Let’s fix him a plate of food.” So, they did, and for the next few weeks, Paper Daddy sat at the table during meals, watched T.V., and generally became an honored member of the family.
Of course, Paper Daddy was a poor substitute for the real thing. He couldn’t hug, snuggle, read stories, or give piggy-back rides. He was cold and fragile and lifeless.
And so it is with the “Paper Daddies” we make. In the absence of a real relationship with our Heavenly Father, many of us fashion a pitiful substitute, a Paper God of sorts.
Sometimes our Paper God looks a bit like Santa Claus, a jolly old soul who in the end, we imagine, will smile and usher us all into Heaven, saying, “Oh, y’all come on in – I didn’t really mean all that stuff about hell.” This cardboard deity doesn’t bear much resemblance to the God of the Bible, but he makes us feel good, and we’re all about feeling good.
Sometimes our Paper God looks just like us because, in fact, we have become our own gods. We worship and trust in our own abilities and resources, and pretty much focus our energies on pleasing ourselves.
Paper Gods can look like anything – bank accounts, powerful positions, material possessions, other people. It’s so easy and tempting to get out the paper and scissors and form something to worship.
But what happens when the medical tests come back and the diagnosis is cancer? Or when we find out our teenager is addicted to drugs? Or when our mother is stricken with Alzheimer’s? Or when the business fails or the marriage becomes a nightmare?
The prophet Isaiah understood. He was God’s spokesman to the worshippers of Paper Gods in his day, saying, “When you cry out for help, let your collection of idols save you! The wind will carry all of them off, a mere breath will blow them away. But the man who makes Me his refuge will inherit the land and possess My holy mountain.” (Isaiah 57:13)
Paper Gods may make us feel deceptively religious, “free” and secure when life is going well, but when things go awry, an imaginary deity is woefully inadequate. When the winds rage, I want to know my God can still them, or help me stand through the tempest. When my heart is broken, I want the God who calls Himself “the God of all hope,” the Wonderful Counselor and Comforter.
The true God may not always act exactly when and how we want Him to act, but He’s God … and we are not. He knows us intimately, loves us passionately, and He never, ever fails or changes.
When I need a refuge, I don’t want one made of paper. Paper wilts in a storm. I want a rock, and that rock is Jesus.
“For who is God besides the Lord? And who is the Rock except our God?” — Psalm 18:31
“But the LORD has become my fortress, and my God the rock in whom I take refuge.” — Psalm 94:22