Posted on Friday, Jun 28, 2019 by Scott Savage
From the time she was a little girl, Kylie Bisutti wanted to be a fashion model. In 2009, she beat 10,000 other contestants to win a Victoria’s Secret Model Search. “Victoria’s Secret was my biggest goal in life. It was all I ever wanted,” Kylie recalls.
Many of us can relate to Kylie. We know how we’d complete the sentence, “If I could just get, everything would be okay.” We say, “If only I had that, I’d be fulfilled, at peace, and experience joy. If only I could achieve that, I would like who I am, and others would respect me. If only I had their love and affection, then I’d be secure.”
Does it sound a lot like worship? The way we look at these achievements, actions, and people?
His intent in creating us was for us to live in freedom. It is for freedom that Christ came to set us free. In Romans 8:32, Paul writes, “Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?”
If asked, most people wouldn’t say that they are idolaters (because that sounds very bizarre), but according to one definition, the shoe just might fit. In his book, Counterfeit Gods, Timothy Keller defines an idol this way: “An idol is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.”
Just before she won the contest, Kylie got married. Even though she enjoyed working as a model, she became conflicted about the nature of her work, the influence she was having on young girls, and what this new opportunity would mean for her marriage. Kylie says, “I finally achieved my biggest dream, the dream I always wanted. But when I finally got it, it wasn’t all I thought it would be.”
