What Guides Your Life?

What guides your life? Or to bring things to their logical end, who guides your life? What do you look to for direction? How much do you rely on the things you look to? How much weight do they carry on how you live your day to day life? As you flip through the pages of your daily newspaper you'll likely find a daily horoscope. The horoscope makes predictions about what your day will be like or about any number of things depending on the horoscope. They differ according to your “star sign” (Libra, Virgo, Scorpio, etc.). Your local book store chain will carry books that promise to tell you all about yourself based on your star sign. They're called star signs because these predictions, these “life-guiding” helps are based on the mystical study of the stars and how they relate to our lives. This study is called Astrology. The question is... who/what is guiding your life?

I've had a conviction in the past year or so to read through the entire Bible once again in my morning devotions. I only take about a chapter a day so it's not like 1 year reading programs. It'll take longer. This morning I was reading through Deuteronomy 4. In 4:19 we read, “And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.” (ESV) When the Bible speaks of the “host of heaven” it's usually a reference to the stars. A “host” is a large group of something. It's also used of a group of people or an army (cf. Ex 14:28, 1 Sam 17:20, Eph 4:8). People may say, “but I don't worship horoscopes!” Well, if worship means to be in a tribe of people who speak a different language in a land far away and who believe cows and trees are gods or who form a wooden statue and call it god... then of course not. There is a subtle worship however. A worship that gives credence and validity and consideration to meaningless things. Even if it's something seemingly small and only a passing thought... does that thought honor God by thinking of Him first? If we really believe God is sovereign (in control of all things) then why would we allow something other than Him and what He has said be the thing to guide our lives? Would you let the sound, pitch, and duration of your dog's barking determine what to do in a given day? Can you imagine yourself thinking, “Oh that was a short bark, which means I should definitely break up with my boyfriend. But the bark was soft instead of loud which means I should be gentle with him even though he hurt me pretty badly”? Hopefully you wouldn't. How much different fundamentally though is listening to your dog and putting any credibility in the horoscope? If anything the dog has more to offer because it's alive and the stars aren't unless astrology somehow says the stars live.

What if the newspaper started a column about the wisdom of dog speech and the impact it can have on how we make decisions? Would you begin to take notice now that society was beginning to take foolishness seriously? I saw a commercial the other day about the first pet hospice in Texas. It even held funerals for your pet. One wonders if the waiting rooms play a continuous loop of the All Dogs Go To Heaven movies. If this is not giving undue consideration to something I'm not sure what is. Our emotional attachment to our animals is just as fickle and fleeting as it is in romantic relationships. Think through the implications of that for a minute and you'll begin to see what I mean. Society places value in the most meaningless things. The phrase “tree huggers” also comes to mind regarding those who hold a high view of “mother earth.” The value may differ and it may only be small... as small as a fortune cookie, but in the end it won't taste much better than that cookie.

Isaiah 47:13-15 says, “You are wearied with your many counsels; let them stand forth and save you, those who divide the heavens, who gaze at the stars, who at the new moons make known what shall come upon you. Behold, they are like stubble; the fire consumes them; they cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame. No coal for warming oneself is this, no fire to sit before! Such to you are those with whom you have labored, who have done business with you from your youth; they wander about, each in his own direction; there is no one to save you.” (ESV) The NASB translates, “those astrologers who make predictions by the stars.” In much the same way, people today can look to them and each go in his own direction... hopelessly. The truth is we aren't even consistent in this. People will tend to follow direction or put more weight in it only so far as it sounds pleasing to the ear. This is fickle humanity. It has no foundation on which to make decisions. It has no truth on which to stand. It whores itself from one idol to the next, from Opra to Dr. Phil to the latest trend and the next good feeling. It trusts in subjective intuition and the drifting tide of opinion. It has no interest in the wisdom of God because that wisdom doesn't come packaged in pithy quaint self-help sayings that are always on our side. The Bible exalts God and points us back to Him. It wants His best for us and that's not always what we want for us. Truth will never cease to demand our entire lives because of its' very nature. We'd rather treat truth like a buffet where we can leave the food that's hard to chew and doesn't digest well in its' corner so we may instead head straight for the pie. Even the sweetest things however without the balance of truth will still rot our teeth and increase our waistline. To be guided by anything but God is to be guided by something that will be burned up like stubble.

If you find yourself “wearied by your many counsels” because those counsels are things other than God, the answer becomes more and more obvious. Acts 7:42 shows us there are times when God can actually turn away from people and give them over to their worship of the host of heaven. But what if the horoscope is right? Does the end justify the means? I never said there was no power in horoscopes. Call me a Christian fanatic if you like, but there is power in the world and some predictions can be true but not all power is from God. It can also be demonic. People think they are so above demonic and Satanic influence and in doing so their ignorance is their own coercion and to the devil's good pleasure. There's a real sense in which when God gives someone over to their sin that it's not only God after He has revealed the truth to that person, but it's the person who themselves is also turning away from God by their adultery with created things and not a pure devotion to the creator. Col. 1:16 says all things including those things in heaven were created “through” and “for” Him. Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” The stars and all of creation were given so they would point you to God and not His creation. If you're placing any undue affection, consideration, or trust in created things, know also that “The heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge!” (Psalm 50:6) God's creation not only points us to Him and tells us to give Him all the consideration, but they also highlight His attributes. One of those attributes is His justice. If we look to the stars those very stars are preaching the justice and judgment of God. If we are looking to them or anything else for the guidance that only God can give... the severity and consequences of that sin is staring at us in the framework and design of the very things we are looking to.

God did many things for the Israelites to show them He is God and no idol is worth their consideration. He said in Deut. 4:39, “know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.” He's also done many things for us to show us He is God. He's given us all of creation to show us He is big, because He made it. If you're unsure about where you're going after you die or unsure if you really are looking to God for your eternity I have something for you to look at. This is not a sales pitch for Christianity or a certain church. Go to www.areyouagoodperson.org and take the test. If you are a Christian and you find as many of us do that from time to time you look to things for guidance that are meaningless compared to God and the counsel of His written Word... I suggest you pick it up and repent of your undue worship, no matter how small it seems to you.