Strongholds and Idols

[HKHaugan]

In the last article we defined strongholds in terms of their synonyms like pretense, fantasy, hang-up, attitude and defensiveness. This time we are going to add another one---mindset. When we come up with some kind of a conclusion about human experience we set our minds on it as truth and build our responses around it.

When I was hitchhiking back in the late 40’ and 50’s I got a job on Cape Cod. What I noticed there was the really ‘in’ people were well to do and dressed a certain way. Men wore pink or blue button down collared long sleeve shirts (even in the Summer) with cuff links, cord pants and white buck shoes (scuffed properly of course). So, wanting to be a part of that crowd, I used my first paycheck to buy the same thing thinking that looking like the casual Summer resident would gain me friends and Winter rich friends. When you live in East Harlem you want a way out. Looking the part was a mindset I built because I believed it would be the gateway to acceptance by the right crowd. That mindset was a stronghold that followed me for a long time.

Acceptance by the ‘right’ people was my idol.

The clothing and what it meant was the image and idea to which I bowed down with my mind, my heart and spirit. But it wasn’t only the clothing, which I only bought very sparingly. It was the mannerisms, the speech, the consciousness of how I walked and the topics conversation demanded. Thankfully I never could pull it off very well. Being influenced by my ethnic background which I had been led to believe was superior anyway (another mindset---stronghold) I lost interest and shifted my basic mindset to fit in wherever I was.

The next Summer, working near the Hamptons on Long Island I met a girl who went to Smith College, then an ‘in’ college for women guaranteeing their contacts with the ‘right’ Ivy League men and later marriage security in their ‘right’ professions, yes, yes again---mindsets---strongholds. She kept asking me what college I was going to and what I was planning for my future. I gave her some story about attending a southern college in the Fall. I didn’t then of course. I had more hitchhiking to do, places to see and trying to figure out what life was all about. But she put college in my mind again (my high school was a driven public college prep school) and I eventually did go,--- and the rest? The Lord had other ideas. That’s for later.

But my mindset, my stronghold, was acceptance and if it meant college to get it I’d do that. I had to serve that idol. When you serve a major idol you discover that a structure of minor idols to support it demand attention. I mentioned clothing and specific behavior already but as you meet people and set goals other visible images arise along the way. Everyone had to belong to a fraternity. I joined one. Everyone had to play some kind of sport. I did. Everyone had to drink a lot of beer when they graduated. My fraternity brothers guided me home. Music was important. I sang and taught myself how to play guitar. That really got me in.

Then come the strategies and techniques you pick up along the way. They are the embellishments of your life story part of which are true, part false, some real and some believed because you want them to be true. Most of our past becomes a hazy mist of real and unreal assumptions, things you thought happened and didn’t, things that really happened you’d rather forget. It is our idols, our mindsets, our strongholds that arrange memories into comfortable and controllable episodes.

Of all the sinful mindsets raised in the Bible idolatry tops the list. There it is recorded as being the most spiritually offensive. When you look at God’s basic reprogramming of fallen humanity as outlined in the Ten Commandments and the Law, correcting idolatry absorbs all the warnings He sends through His prophets. Just looking at the first three Commandments the emphasis is on One God; the first, not to have any other gods, the second, not to make any physical image to worship, the third, not to misuse His name. The fourth even sets a non-working day of the week so that the Lord God is given total attention in honor of Him being the Creator of all existence. The fifth through the tenth are the way we honor God in our relationships in the world. What we learn from them is that concentration on who He is, what He has done and the mindset He gives us, becomes the stronghold that replaces our meager attempts to define and control who and what we are.

What we learn from God is dependency on Him as opposed to how we read and adjust to the world by our faulty inept reading of our physical and social environment. Anything or anyone other than the One God is idolatry in the making.

Sin in human beings is the force behind idolatry. Idolatry was and is sin’s most objectionable practice. Idolatry is demanding, divisive, destructive and deadly because sin is demanding, divisive, destructive and deadly. If we really are willing to examine the strongholds that dominate so much of our behavior in the world we would find a freedom to be honest about sin not only within ourselves but actually confess it, seek forgiveness for it and find that through this process we can change the environment in which we live. The problem with sin is that it does its best in us to deny its existence. When we use the word sin note the reaction it causes, defensiveness, “Ok, so I make mistakes but I’m not as bad as other people, especially those you read about in the newspaper and see on TV. I’m really a good person at heart.” Self-deception is sin’s major accomplishment. With that we’ll stop here.

Next we are going to see how strongholds started, God’s plan to eradicate them and where we as individuals play a role in helping others to overcome them.