The carpenter stretches a line; he marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house. He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, "Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!" And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, "Deliver me, for you are my god!" - Isaiah 44:13-17

In this brief selection from the Old Testament prophet most often quoted in the New Testament, Isaiah unmasks the folly of idolatry such that even a child could understand it: a guy takes a tree and carves an idol from it while scraps of the same wood burn in his fireplace keeping him warm and cooking his food. Then he sets up the image he has made and worships it. DUH! It's a stick of wood, Dude!

While it is easy to look back upon those times and, like Isaiah, hold up the idolator to ridicule, are we any better? What do we worship? Where is our greatest security? Upon whom do we depend? Again, as children we already understood.

When a child senses danger, the natural instinct is to cry out for the protection of their parent. "Daddy!" or "Momma!" intoned in alarm cuts through the din of a disquiet world to bring swift deliverance and comfort. (Yes, I know, in this world gone mad it is not always the case, but we do know it should be.) Children are "programmed" to look to their parents for protection and nurture, gradually "growing out of it" until they stand on their own as adults.

Have we outgrown God? Have we become self sufficient and satisfied that our own productivity has secured all that we need. We were warned of this danger:

And when the LORD your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you--with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant-and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. It is the LORD your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you--for the LORD your God in your midst is a jealous God--lest the anger of the LORD your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth. - Deuteronomy 6:10-15

The danger of prosperity is that we will be satisfied and forget the giver of all good gifts (James 1:17). Perhaps this is why we find things a bit more challenging lately. Prosperity has become a pricier commodity of late, I'm sure you've noticed. People who never gave God a thought might even be giving Him the blame. But perhaps He is only trying to get our attention, like the teenager away at college whose Visa card suddenly stops working. Time for an emergency call home!

How about you? Who you gonna' call? If you're like me, it's a bit late to call the folks. Better call upon the Father of us all--always toll-free, never a busy signal, dropped connection or weird music on hold. But if you find yourself talking to a stick of wood, or anything less than the Maker of heaven and earth, Dude, you got the wrong number!

Pressly