Edward stomped into the room and sat on a chair.

“In trouble?” Grandpa asked.

“Yes,” Edward growled. “I’m always the one. It’s no use trying to be good any more!”

“Weren’t you playing trucks in the yard?”

Edward nodded. “I was building a bridge with the new bulldozer but Mom said I had to share and it isn’t fair! Now I can’t play at all and Sammy’s going to wreck everything.”

“It sounds horrible,” agreed Grandpa. He leaned back in his chair. “I suppose I should tell you the story of

The Idol Trap

(From Ezra 9 and 10)

After 70 years of being captives in Babylon, many of the Jews had been allowed to return to their broken-down city of Jerusalem. Jarib was the son of a priest who worked to rebuild the temple of God. But when Jarib grew up he married a pretty Hittite girl who worshiped idols. He knew God hates false gods, but he made excuses. “I don’t believe in those silly statues,” he told himself. “Besides, my brother married a Hittite girl and it didn’t hurt him.”

Soon Jarib was invited to a Hittite harvest party. The songs and dances were exciting. That evening the stars and trees seemed to dance, too. Jarib felt strange. “We became captives because our people turned away from the true God and worshiped idols,” his father had once said. But we have rebuilt the temple now, Jarib argued. If I go there every day to pray I’ll be alright. At the temple God seemed far away and Jarib wasn’t happy. At home his wife sang Hittite songs and prayed to her idols. Jarib couldn’t get them out of his mind.

One cold rainy evening Jarib arrived at the temple to find a large crowd gathered. “The princes have told the new priest, Ezra, about the marriages to idol-worshipers,” someone said. Jarib frowned. “Ezra’s really upset,” said Jarib’s uncle. “We have been entangled with the same evil things that turned us away from God before! What have we done?” The older man started to cry.

Jarib turned away, but his heart felt as heavy as the dark sky. He shivered and thought of going home. Did the new priest know who his wife was? But Ezra had knelt on the temple porch and was crying to God. Jarib forgot the falling rain as he listened to the earnest prayer: “O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face before Thee!”

“My God?” Jarib whispered. “I say He is the true God, but I don’t love Him and obey Him. What does He think of me?” His wife and all her evil idols had caught him like a trap and he couldn’t get out! “O God, help me!” he cried as he covered his face.

Jarib was trembling with cold when he got home that night. “Foolish man!” said his wife, bringing him dry clothes.

“Yes, I am very foolish,” Jarib agreed. “I have let a pretty face and strange idols turn my heart from God. Tonight I confessed my wrong and promised to get clear. The idols all must go.”

His wife was angry. “You don’t care how I feel! If my idols go, I go, too!”

“Yes, you, too,” Jarib said, sadly. “It is how my God feels that matters to me now. I must please Him.”

Grandpa looked at his grandson. “I think Jarib felt much happier, even though he had to live alone in an empty house after that,” said Grandpa. “What do you think?”

“If idols aren’t real, why do people worship them?” Edward asked.

“Because it is easier,” Grandpa said. “The idols didn’t care whether you told the truth or shared with your brother. It was easier to just live as you pleased and pray to the stars and trees. But how do you think God feels about it?”

“Bad,” said Edward.

“And how does God feel when you are selfish and don’t share?”

Edward hung his head. “I try to be nice, but Sammy….”

“Sammy controls you? Or is it your selfishness idol?”

Edward frowned. “I don’t have an idol. I don’t pray to myself! I pray to God.”

Grandpa was quiet for a moment. “Who do you think about all the time?” he asked. “Are you pleasing yourself or Jesus? Remember how Jarib thought he was praying to God, but he was really thinking about those idols and Hittite songs?”

Slowly Edward nodded.

“It was like he was caught in a trap and pretending to be free,” Grandpa said. “The only way out was for him to realize that he was trapped and be really sorry. Sorry enough to cry for God’s help and get rid of all the things that didn’t please God. And that is the only way for you to get out of the selfishness trap.”