I (K)New

What Dagon taught me about love, idolatry, and surrender

“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

As I read that phrase, inevitably, images of Charlton Heston as Moses dance through my mind; the actor dressed in woven robes, carrying a formidable staff, wearing a beard that could put Santa Claus to shame. I picture a scene on Mount Sinai, with its burned and smoking top; Moses and God “chatting” about how to govern and teach a previously enslaved people how to live in freedom.

These people had been living in slavery for over 400 years… they had no idea how or even what freedom could possibly mean in their day to day lives. So, rules were needed to teach them. They were much like a classroom full of pre-k students who were going to school for the very first time in their lives. They had to learn the rules and consequences of operating in a world away from those that governed them all their lives. There would be freedom they did not know before…but there would also be a responsibility that comes with exercising that freedom.

The most important rule, reiterated from above, was, “Hey, I am God. Period. No one else gets to have that title or that place in your lives.” The Israelites really struggled with this concept throughout their history, though. Sometimes, I think we wonder, “Really, you struggled to just accept one God? You would rather worship a gold covered rock (or heck, even a piece of a stick)? After all the things you saw God do?”

It can be so easy to think of this problem on a surface level and get a bit judgmental and haughty. However, one day, a couple of years ago, God took me through a bit of a deep dive into this rule.

I will share a few things I learned, things that God and I talked through, the conviction that came, the redemption I received, and the freedom I learned as I walked in this command from a place of surrender, truth and understanding (much like those newly set free Israelites who had to learn what freedom actually means).

My story into this command started in I Samuel chapter 5. At this time, Israel was a theocracy: a people who were governed by God through appointed judges and prophets. During the time portrayed in this part of the book of I Samuel, Israel was at war with its surrounding neighbors (surprise, surprise…I suppose one could say things have not changed much, heh). The Philistines had captured the Ark of the Covenant in battle. This ark represented God’s presence in the nation of Israel; so, it was a BIG deal that it had been captured.

The Philistines took the most sacred object in the Israeli kingdom; woo hoo… now what?

This is where we pick up the story in I Samuel chapter 5:

After the Philistines had captured the ark of God, they took it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. ² Then they carried the ark into Dagon’s temple and set it beside Dagon. ³ When the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord! They took Dagon and put him back in his place. ⁴ But the following morning when they rose, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord! His head and hands had been broken off and were lying on the threshold; only his body remained. ⁵ That is why to this day neither the priests of Dagon nor any others who enter Dagon’s temple at Ashdod step on the threshold.

⁶ The Lord’s hand was heavy on the people of Ashdod and its vicinity; he brought devastation on them and afflicted them with tumors. ⁷ When the people of Ashdod saw what was happening, they said, “The ark of the god of Israel must not stay here with us, because his hand is heavy on us and on Dagon our god.” ⁸ So they called together all the rulers of the Philistines and asked them, “What shall we do with the ark of the god of Israel?”

They answered, “Have the ark of the god of Israel moved to Gath.” So they moved the ark of the God of Israel.

⁹ But after they had moved it, the Lord’s hand was against that city, throwing it into a great panic. He afflicted the people of the city, both young and old, with an outbreak of tumors. ¹⁰ So they sent the ark of God to Ekron.

As the ark of God was entering Ekron, the people of Ekron cried out, “They have brought the ark of the god of Israel around to us to kill us and our people.” ¹¹ So they called together all the rulers of the Philistines and said, “Send the ark of the god of Israel away; let it go back to its own place, or it will kill us and our people.” For death had filled the city with panic; God’s hand was very heavy on it. ¹² Those who did not die were afflicted with tumors, and the outcry of the city went up to heaven.

Who or what the heck is “Dagon”? Dagon was a god in the Philistine culture. He was considered the god of crop fertility and fish. He was pictured as having the body and head of a man with a fish tail–likely the first appearance of a merman!

This story fascinated me even as a child, but as it is with many things in the Bible, one can read the same story over and over again but draw something new from it each time.

This time, I was meditating on the fact that this image of a god lay toppled in these people’s temple. A temple is a holy place, right? The Philistines had enough sense to know that God had come into the battle when the Israelites brought the Ark; and, they knew who He was, what He was capable of.

When they won the battle and captured the Ark, they did not put the thing in a hole in the ground, or some backwater farmer’s shed…no, they had enough respect for YHWH to bring the Ark into their holy place, the temple of Dagon. Yet, the image of Dagon lay face down in front of the Ark. When they tried to set it up again, the next day they found the thing decapitated, hands cut off and thrown near the threshold!

As I was imagining the above story, I heard the very clear voice of YHWH say, “I will have no other gods before Me….but, I will have no other gods beside Me either.” My spiritual ears immediately perked up in that closet I had converted into an office.

I spent so much time in that closet during that season of life. I was a hurting, lonely single mother of three children. I did not, could not, trust people at that time. I had been betrayed by friends, family, lovers, co-workers. A lot of my wounds were inflicted by and stirred up by people who claimed to be Christians. Although I grew up in church, had traveled several places in the world to work with missionaries and was passionate about “doing” God’s work in all areas of ministry in church, I ended up in a dark and lonely place, not wanting to have anything to do with religion or Christianity.  

I learned, though, during this time, that there was a difference between religion and relationship with God. Even though I was on an island all alone, I needed and wanted to know what Love actually was. Being an orphan during the most formative years of my childhood, it was a concept that I had forgotten or never truly experienced. Wounds, hurts, trauma throughout my life kept me from “feeling” love the way others did. It made my adopted parents’ lives pretty difficult; love, for me, was just something you pretended to do to make sure that you did not get sent back to the orphanage in India (a fear I lived in during my childhood).

I turned to the only thing I thought could maybe, possibly love me during a time when I was so unloved. If God was real, maybe He could show me who He was. If God was true, maybe He could show me what it meant to be loved, what it meant to have freedom.

I did begin to experience God in a very real way. I often tell people, I do not believe in God, in Jesus, in the Holy Spirit, because someone gave a persuasive speech… I believe because of my own experiences with Him. I know Him because I looked for Him and found Him. I speak to Him, I have experienced His life giving miracles and I learned about life at His feet when no one else seemed to want me.

In this particular season, I was so hungry for the Word of God; I wanted to know Him, understand Him, be with Him. In my “secret place”, I devoured the Word and talked with God for hours and hours. During that season, it was not unusual for me to get lost in conversations and study for 4,5, 6 hours and have no idea that my day was already half gone. When I had honest musings, they often turned into life-giving conversations with the Lord.

“Not only will I have no other gods before Me…I will have no other gods beside Me either.” As God and I talked in my closet, the Lord showed me that while He was taken to the Philistines’ most sacred place in that town, He was still not okay with sharing that spot with an imposter. He is not okay with sharing His spot…with anyone or anything. He is not just “one of the gods”, He is the only true God.

In the story in I Samuel, God was kind. He gave the people a hint on the first day; their god on his face before the Ark of the Covenant. They didn’t quite get the hint, picking the statue up and putting him back where he belonged. So, God gave them a much stronger “hint”. He broke the head and the hands and threw them at the threshold. Plus, the people in town started having such huge problems that they proceeded to try to get rid of the Ark, sending it around to several different cities for seven months before they decided to send the thing back to the Israelites.

Okay, cool story…why am I sharing this?

Well, at that time in my life, I was crazy in love with a guy. Helen of Troy and Paris had nothing on the level of passion and destruction I was willing to go through for this man. We were like the modern Romeo and Juliet, ill fated from the start of our love affair; yet, I was willing to drink poison again and again for this guy. It was the one-of-a-kind, once-in-a-life time kind of love and passion…the kind they show in movies (that usually brings out the cynicism in most sane people), but it was every bit real, every bit destructive, every bit passionate. The kind of love you just can’t forget no matter how many other lovers you might have in your life.

I used to be a undies-in-a-tight-wad kind of girl; a super straight arrow and self-righteous religious prick before this dude. He showed up and the undies relaxed… to the point of compromising some of the most basic laws of God.

I didn’t walk away from God. The craziness of that beautifully destructive love affair was that it actually tore down the shiny whitewashed tomb, and allowed God access to rebuild me into something way more…real. The reason I love the verse “where sin abounds, grace abounds even more.” I toed the line from the start, then crossed over it…all the while using scripture to justify my actions.

Did you know it’s easy to justify just about anything with the Bible? Hence the reason why it is so dangerous to read the Book without understanding the Author or allowing the Holy Spirit to be the Helper that He is meant to be. Without Him, perception can guide us into the pit of Hell, all while using scripture.

See, at that time, I did not displace God out of my life. I had Him front and center in my Temple, if you will. (The Bible calls us the Temple of God- I Corinthians 3: 16). But, because of my passionate love for the gorgeous blue-eyed sculpture, I had inadvertently put him in the temple next to God. While my “merman god” was not above God, I allowed him to have the same kind of love, influence, and worship in my life.

God does not share.

What do you think happened to this “Dagon” in my life… and to me?

Our love affair, as passionate as it was, could not last. But, boy, I hung on. For seven years, I hung on. There was a destructive pattern that this dude and I cycled through again and again… not once did it occur to me that God kept toppling my idol, breaking and shattering pieces that I kept trying to replace back on the pedestal. Until, one day, God used I Samuel 5 and spoke to me. Ding…light bulb moment!

In the story, God toppled the image of Dagon. Then, He broke off pieces and hurled them at the threshold. I found it fascinating that He never threw them out of the temple. I asked Him why? If He is such a jealous God and wants the whole temple to Himself…why didn’t He just toss the whole dang idol out the door… or out of the city?

He said, “that’s not MY job”.

Ding! Another light bulb moment. Removing the idol from our “most holy place”, has to be our choice. I learned that God will reveal Himself. He will even create problems when there is an obstacle for a pure relationship between you and Him, but He will never overstep His boundary to your choice. The Philistines (much like us), didn’t get the hint.

Then, instead of understanding the God whom they clearly feared and respected, they moved Him around for 7 months, trying to get Him to just calm down and let them do what they wanted with Him. God threw a fit. Everywhere that Ark went, destruction followed…until the Philistines had enough and returned the Ark to where it belonged, along with a gift as a guilt offering.

Imagine for a second though, what might have happened if the people of Ashdod would have understood that God was the only true God and that He would not share His glory, His space, with another?

Scripture repeatedly shows God responding with mercy when Gentiles (even in the Old Testament) turned toward Him in faith…He even integrated them into honor– like Rahab and Ruth. Rahab became a part of the Israelite community and Ruth, a Moabite, was integrated into the bloodline of Jesus Christ.

Just as God would not share the space in Ashdod with the merman of fertility and fish, God refused to share space in my heart with my Mr. Blue. The consequences of me trying to make that fit were…painful.

But, I had to be the one to choose what I would do with God and Mr. Blue– and remove the one that did not belong in the Most Holy of Holies… my Heart.

Here is where the rubber meets the road… Do you have a Dagon in your life?

What does he look like? Man…woman…child(ren)…work…a nice car, house, white picket fence…a healthy savings account…an influencer site…a church…a ministry…a sports team…a political party?

Even harder question…Is he sharing the space that is meant for YHWH alone?

You have to choose to examine yourself… be willing to face that just maybe you have not abandoned God, but maybe God is being made to share you…and humble yourself enough to remove the idol rather than put him back on the pedestal…or move him around in your life to justify the idolatry. I John 1:9 says that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Restart. Give God back the space that belongs to Him alone.