Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake the hope of steadfast love.

What idols tempt your regard?

Common idols include wealth, beauty, and popularity. Looking the right way and fitting in with the folks around us form a vain idol. I wonder if millions of people possessed a latent desire for a tattoo, or did the cool kids start inking and the masses discovered their desire for multi-colored skin art?

Social media and the pursuit of “likes” fashion a glittering golden calf. Studies show the detrimental effects of social media overuse, yet the allure remains too strong to temper its use.

Idols don’t spring from a vacuum. A good one fills an empty place in our life, and the best burrow deep into the soil of our nature. Where God intends so much more, idols drain our hopes into a cesspool of nothingness.

Idols shoulder out steadfast love. The reluctant prophet, Jonah ran from the Lord only to discover his penchant for idols in the belly of a fish, a stark circumstance in which to learn a valuable lesson. Idols disappoint and lead to disaster. Scripture, history, and life circumstances all point out this truth.

Which leads me to ask—what vain idols tempt my regard?

Jonah 2 in reading the Bible in 2023

Photo by JOSHUA COLEMAN