Dee Brestin - Idol Lies: Facing the Truth About Our Deepest Desires

When I started to read Dees new book, I thought, Whoa, this is so honest. As I kept reading (because I couldnt put it down), I thought, This is big! Something (or Someone) has struck a nerve in Dees life, and it is reverberating throughout the whole book. I dont believe you can read Idol Lies without finding your own spiritual nerves sharply jangled while at the same time being sweetly consoled.

Jan Silvious
Professional life coach, speaker, and author

There is nothing didactic about Dee Brestin. She teaches from a place of humility, modeling with her own life, guiding the reader to greater freedom and understanding of the many things that entangle us. I am convicted and encouraged by this book!

Sara Groves
Singer/songwriter

Are you stuck? Do you know all the right things to do yet continue to struggle with the same sins over and over again? Dees book will clarify the reason for your stuckness and show you Gods way out. With compelling authenticity and sweet vulnerability, Dee isnt just the teacher; she is also the student, sharing how God exposed her hidden idolatry and tenderly transformed her heart.

Leslie Vernick
Licensed counselor, coach, speaker,
and author of The Emotionally Destructive Relationship and
Lord, I Just Want to Be Happy

IDOL
LIES

How Jesus is setting us free from...

Facing the Truth
About Our
Deepest Desires

Dee Brestin

AUTHOR OF THE MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER THE FRIENDSHIPS OF WOMEN

Copyright 2012 by Dee Brestin

Published by Worthy Publishing, a division of Worthy Media, Inc., 134 Franklin Road, Suite 200, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027.

HELPING PEOPLE EXPERIENCE THE HEART OF GOD

eBook available at www.worthypublishing.com

Audio distributed through Oasis Audio; visit www.oasisaudio.com

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012941809

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.

Scripture quotations marked CEV are from the Contemporary English Version. Copyright 1995 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version. Public domain.

Scripture quotations marked MSG are from The Message. Copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Scripture quotations marked NEB are from the New English Bible. Copyright Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press, 1961, 1970.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, IL 60188. All rights reserved.

Published in association with Creative Trust Literary, 5141 Virginia Way, Suite 320, Brentwood, TN 37027; www.creativetrust.com

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ISBN: 978-1-61795-072-8 (hardcover w/ jacket)

Cover Design: Faceout Studio, Jeff Miller
Cover Image: Shutterstock
Interior Typesetting: Susan Browne

Printed in the United States of America
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To my sisters who piloted this study and
opened their hearts to the Stonecutters knife.

I will give you a new heart
and put a new spirit in you;
I will remove from you your heart of stone
and give you a heart of flesh.

Ezekiel 36:26, NIV

The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?

Jeremiah 17:9

Ive got layers of lies I dont even know about.

Sara Groves, Eyes Wide Open

My name is Dee and I am an idolater.

For most of my Christian life I didnt know I was an idolater. I certainly didnt worship statues. I loved the One True God. But I have come face to face with my navet. I now know I have what Ezekiel calls idols of the heart.

Let me tell you my story.

All I knew was that I was having trouble keeping an administrative assistant. I couldnt understand it.

Wasnt I a warm and caring boss? I never yelled or made unreasonable demands. Why didnt they appreciate what they had? The work was meaningful, the travel exciting, the pay good, and the boss encouraging. So what was the matter?

Since it took a good year to learn the complexities of the position, I would hire only someone who expressed a desire to work in the ministry long term. Yet invariably, after just two or three years, my assistant would have a change of heart about being involved long term and resign.

When my fourth administrative assistant resigned, I lamented to my friend Jan Silvious, expecting a sympathetic ear. Instead, she arched an eyebrow, peered at me through her funky rhinestone glasses, and said, Dee, this seems to be a pattern in your life.

What? Was she implying that I was the problem?

That was a wake-up call for me. I had deceived myself about the darkness lurking in my heart. I told myself I was a good boss. But I wasnt.

All along, I had felt I was serving God. I was puzzled. Why am I not experiencing more of the promised joy? Why do my assistants keep leaving? In other words, before I became aware of my idolatry, I became aware of the symptoms telling me that something was not right.

As I would discover, I had idols in my heart that were blocking my intimacy with God, bringing friction in key relationships, and destroying my joy. Yet because soul idols are invisible, I didnt even know they were there.

Any time our deepest desire is for something other than God because we think that will satisfy or rescue us, a dangerous soul idol is forming. We may idolize the approval of people, our own comfort, or maintaining control. All of these things can become idol lies, things we value more than God. We cling to these idols, and in so doing, as Jonah said, we forfeit the grace that could be ours (see Jonah 2:8, NIV).

The scriptural truth on which this book is based has had an enormous impact on my own life and gives me a passion for you to know it too. I have tested the truth in pilot groups, and the results in womens lives are nothing less than astounding. Though many of these women are mature believers, a light is going on that has been off all of their Christian lives. They are being delivered from anxiety, depression, gluttony, and so many destructive behaviors and emotions.

Let me share with you an image that has been helpful to these women and to me on this journey: soul idolatry is like cancer, especially the silent cancers. My husband did not know he had a tumor in his colon, but he did know that his stomach was often upset and that he felt unusually tired. He told me that he might have an ulcer and that he would check that out, but he believed that he really just needed a good vacation. He did not know a malignant tumor was in his body, growing, destroyingthat it would take him from our five children and me in his prime.