“Ideal Christianity doesn’t exist, because anything the human being touches, even Christian truth, he deforms slightly in his own image.”

~Flannery O’Connor 

The sound was surely worse than the reality. At least that is what I told myself as the pounding brushes and blasting water grew louder. 

The massive arms rolled ever-so-slowly down the length of my vehicle.

Watching warily, I waited with a pained expression on my face to see if it got any worse. Afraid to look up, I eventually did. Able to trace the outline of the rotating brushes of the car wash make their way across the soft top of my vehicle, I muttered to my daughter. 

“This is not good,” she said. 

I chose the touch-less option. There should be nothing running back and forth across the roof of my truck but there was. 

This is false advertising! 

My vehicle was filthy and desperately needed a good scrubbing, no doubt about it. And I am more than happy to do the work myself, but the weather has been just less than warm enough to take it on. The promise of a good cleaning without worry of damage was what I bought into. 

Relieved that there was no damage done, I made a mental note to avoid this particular car wash for future needs.

As I drove away in my dripping truck, I wondered how much of life is like this. So much! That was the only logical conclusion.

Reality is lacking. The sales pitch is always greater than the follow through. The promises are rarely kept. 

From the pillow infomercial that promises my neck ache will be gone for good to the politician who has an answer for literally every life problem, we know deep down that the luster will be lost when the order is fulfilled, when the votes are counted. 

Somehow I keep ordering. Keep signing up for services. Continuing to believe the sales pitch I’m being sold. 

A car commercial recently told me I can go anywhere and do anything and take any one. False, false and false.

Immediately my skin feels hydrated and glowy when the serum fights aging for me. False.

Five minutes a day with the new routine and I will reach my weight goal before the big event. Also false.

What is really wrong is trying to make life right by using things. The shortcomings and downfalls and more than physical failures, moral failures cannot be improved by any thing.

This week’s sermon at church highlighted just such a scenario in 1 Samuel 4. The Philistines defeated Israel. After the loss of 4,000 men, they decided to bring the ark along. 

“Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the LORD here from Shiloh, that it may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies,” verse 3 says. Once they ordered the ark into the camp, the Israelites started shouting, excited about the power of the ark. 

The anticipated protective power of the ark fell short. The ensuing defeat even worse than the first. The route meant 30,000 dead foot soldiers. Or as verse 10 explicitly explains, “And there was a very great slaughter…”

The Philistines also captured the ark.

The people then, like people now, put their faith in the wrong thing.

More accurately, any thing. 

“Human history is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy,” C.S. Lewis so succinctly explained.

Moving beyond the superficial things that we grasp to try and alleviate our earthly worries, the 1 Samuel story makes clear the problem is far deeper, more complex. Ultimately we are worshiping, relying on things—any thing that we believe will alleviate the problem, make us happy.

We are relying on our own strength, our own solutions.

When we don’t win the battle, when we suffer massive loss, the first thought is we can find a way to fix it, fix ourselves if we just find the right _____. Fill in the blank. The right person. The right strategy. The right product.

The Israelites, as God’s chosen people, knew intimately God’s power, but they were attempting to use God’s power—scary territory. They weren’t worshiping. They weren’t reverently seeking him. They had mixed in foreign gods, muddied the waters, divided their hearts.

Though the ark was returned, 20 years went by as Israel lamented. Samuel called on Israel to put away the gods (the things) to serve God only. 

They fasted and prayed and repented and when the time again came to fight the Philistines, the request was not for the ark but for the LORD. 

They were desperate.

They were dirty and in need of cleansing. 

They weren’t mistaking anything for the presence of God.

“Do not cease to cry out to the LORD our God for us, that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines,” they begged Samuel in chapter 7. 

Samuel interceded. God saved.

It is yet one more time the Bible relays the often sad story of man. God creates, chooses, calls us to himself. In return we quickly forget His faithfulness and think we can handle this on our own: I can eliminate the filth. Give me the touch-less version to get clean.

We find this is not possible. (See Psalm 107)

So God got dirty on our behalf. He touches the deepest need. And like the Israelites, He gives us the victory.