Tales of Idols and Trust

I want to vent some personal revelations:

You see, I have realized that my relationship with God is a lie. I only worship him when I am not worshiping cigarettes. He is a secondary God. He is a god that I am only aware of when I am not praying to the god of nicotine. I have realized that I don't trust God because I didn't trust my father.  This is because I thought that he was never there to warrant that trust. But no human father is capable of absolute trust.  Inevitably, they will all let us down.. our expectations of them can be anywhere from low to superhuman, and no man can live up to them. And I haven't spent time trusting God, allowing him to work - to come through, like the "just in time" God that he is. It's hard when you've been a Christian for 20 years and you figure out you have been worshiping another god: a drug.

     I pray to this God upon waking in the morning, several times during the day, at meals, and to put me to bed at night. I trust it: it is my emotional reset button. Whenever I am too angry or sad or excited or happy, I take it in and it calms me.  It resets my emotions back to level. It never lets me down.

     And my time I spend with the real God only happens when I am not laying myself at the alter of nicotine. I only go to church between cigarettes- one before and one after. I only spend time with God when I am not spending my time seeking relief from the god of nicotine.

     But while this idol is now obvious to me, there have been many others in the course of my life. And I think it is true, to varying degrees of every honest Christian. Do you trust God to meet every need? Brennan manning calls it ruthless trust. It is the trust a boy has of his parents, if they are loving parents.  It is an unfaltering view that despite anything that happens, they will always look out for you and do what is in your best interest. Do you have this kind of trust in God?  (Trust is just another, more descriptive word, I believe, for faith).  Or do you look to other things to fill the void left by a relationship with God that does not have a bedrock of trust?

     I seek what gives me comfort.  If I trust God and rely on him for comfort, to provide for my needs, then I seek him.  I know this from my own experience and from the experience of countless other men in the pages of scripture.

     So how do I walk out this trust?  I can pray, "Lord help me" instead of taking out that cigarette, knowing that he will get me through the craving.  Knowing that he will fill the void that I am seeking to fill by acting out.  Knowing that he will be my emotional reset button, if I take a minute, sit somewhere quiet and pray to him.  Not a complicated "spiritual" prayer.  Just a basic, "God, I am here.  I am listening" prayer.  And then the mindset to wait, to be in the moment.  The posture to listen for that still small voice in the quiet of my soul.  To see the beauty in the world around me.  It is amazing to me that when I do this, the beauty of the word "pops" like a beautiful color sticks out in a beautiful painting.  And I don't need to worship my idols.  There is just me and God - the way it is supposed to be.  The way countless men and women, saints and sinners, addicts and popes, have all experienced throughout the course of their short times here on earth.  When you know your idols, you learn very quickly the remedy for their controlling pull.  The remedy, I think, is trust in God.