Cars, money, family, what is your IDOL?

Of all the major scriptures that have been delivered to mankind, whether it was divine or not, the common theme seems to be the worship of God alone and the most important thing tends to be to avoid worshipping idols.

Christians and Jews both believe:

1 And God spoke all these words, saying: {S} 2 I am the LORD thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.

Muslims also believe:

[4:48]  GOD does not forgive idolatry, but He forgives lesser offenses for whomever He wills. Anyone who sets up idols beside GOD, has forged a horrendous offense.

As we see in the major monotheistic scriptures, idol worship is clearly the most horrendous offense, even moreso than murder, adultery, rape, etc.

Now let us apply this to our lives and ask why, I believe anyone who has some awareness of this is able to recognize it through their daily lives. Many think than an idol needs to be a statue or a certain "unseen being or beings" but we can see from our experiences in life that whatever we let occupy our minds the most becomes an idol, and this inevitably leads to a downfall.

Think back to a time you've been so VERY into something; from my experiences when I am focused on something so much to the point where I disregard other people or, other things I SHOULD be doing instead, or getting angry at anything that gets in the way of what I am so mentally involved in, I only end up in distress.

Remember a time you may have been working on your car, trying to finish some business plan, waiting for the day you get to buy some new gadget. I bet all of us have experienced something similar at one time or another where no matter what, nothing seems to go right in favor of getting to the objective. Now this could be on the small scale, maybe its something you dont see yourself being into for long but at the moment you are willing to drop everything else just for this one thing/person/whatever it may be.

In the end it seems like the lesson is always never to be too occupied with one thing, we eventually move on and see how silly it was, and the funny thing is, myself included, we end up making the mistakes over and over again.

Have you ever been so in love for example that it seemed like life had become all about that one person? And once something happened to that bond you felt what many people would consider Hell on earth? Enough examples for now, just something to think about.

Quran:

[2:257]  GOD is Lord of those who believe; He leads them out of darkness into the light. As for those who disbelieve, their lords are their idols; they lead them out of the light into darkness - these will be the dwellers of Hell; they abide in it forever.