Idolatry can be a tricky thing to see if you are guilty of. When most people think of idolatry, they think of an object or an obsession that takes top priority over everything else. Yes, these things are true, but there is so much more to it than this. Not very often is it talked about idolatry in a marriage in the sense of putting your husband’s or wife’s opinion and acceptance before God.

I have found myself guilty of idolatry on many counts. My passion of wanting to do it right can override and cloud my judgment in so many areas. I have had to receive deliverance on this kind of spirit and then address the mindsets. It is a weakness that has been shown to me that I am now working on and where it has drained my relationship with God that I am looking forward to having restored.

The one trait I have is I do not like anyone to be mad especially because of me. I know that I can’t make everyone like me, but I love to see people happy. To make someone’s day is something that I just like to do. To bring a smile or to let them know they are loved, gives such a joy that I can’t explain. I know it is a character trait that God has given me, but there are weaknesses to it. It was a big struggle for me to accept that no matter what I did not everyone was going to be happy and people were going to get mad at me. I know some of you who are reading this can relate, and please open your eyes to see that this can open a door to putting people before God and this is a way for idolatry to settle in.

This has been very hard when it comes to doing this for my husband. My husband is one of my favorite people in my life and he matters a lot to me. This is good but not when it crosses the line of putting him before God. For the longest time, I would do anything to make him happy and make life as easy as possible for him. Yes, I still want to make him happy and life to be good, but there has to be balance. I would pass all of it off as godly because there were certain boundaries that I wouldn’t cross thinking that it made all the difference but the truth is, it just kept me from going further down a bad road, but not stopping me from going down that bad road.

One of these flaws was making my husband’s opinion, acceptance, and actions in higher regards than God’s. I would allow things that was said, either by my own perceptions or by the truth, take me to war against my love for God, what I knew God was saying, and to question myself continuously. This is not to say that my husband’s opinions, acceptance, and actions were wrong or not important. There were times when there were off days and I knew that it wasn’t ok. Instead of standing on my love for God and leaving these things in God’s hands, I would allow it to being to take me to a place where God did not want me to be. I allowed it to stop me from doing what God has called and asked me to do.

Instead of being my husband’s helper, I became my husband’s weight, a tool that the enemy could use to pull us both to go the wrong way. Other times, I would try to be God in his life to fix things that was not mine to fix. There were times I tried to walk out his salvation, while in the meantime, losing my own.

Now to be honest this didn’t happen quickly and went under the radar. The devil is very cunning and sly. Deception is one of his greatest games and weapons he uses against God’s children. He is successful when your focus goes off of what God says through His Word, or by speaking to you and onto a fear or an expectation that seems to be going wrong that you take into your own hands.

I would listen to our pastor so many times tell us, put your eyes on God and not your situation or circumstances. I blindly thought I understood and boy was I wrong. The depths of a truth will only go as far as we allow it. We take things at face value or just at surface level, but what we should do is let God really soak it in and take root in all areas and to just what we are thinking about at the time.

When having to choose whether or not to do what I knew God wanted me to do or to deal with what I thought my husband would react to, I would divert to what I thought would make my husband happy with putting a spin on it that I would still do what I knew I could do for God and expect God to still be happy with it. Right there I put my husband in the place of where God should be.

When you do this often enough, you get blinded to what position God has and what position your spouse should have. You convince yourself that doing what your husband wants is what is most important and what God wants, and it gets camouflaged into so many reasons and excuses of why it should be that way. You not only hurt yourself, but your husband, and anyone else that is there with you both.

What or who do you put above the voice of God? Is it a spouse, a child, an object, social media? Take a look at the priorities in your life and where really is God? Do you have idols before Him?

Don’t forget to check out next week article for part 2 of idolatry in marriage and the importance of positioning and balance is to keeping the door shut.