My daughter sobbed when she realized she didn't have enough money to buy a guinea pig she's been saving up for.

"Why are you sad?" I asked.

"Because I can't buy a guinea pig!"

"Is the guinea pig what it takes to make you happy?"

She hesitated for a second, swallowed a few tears and waited. "Honey, your tears are proving  that guinea pig can't make you happy. By trying to let a guinea pig fulfill you, it's actually making you miserable. It's okay to be disappointed. But if your hope and joy is found in gaining some kind of object or achieving some kind of feat, that object or feat is your idol and will destroy the very happiness you hoped it would bring."

Ironically, both the churched and the unchurched create idols. For the unchurched it's music, beer, drugs, and football. For the churched it's marriage, kids, church, and football. As good as marriage can be and as wonderful as beer may taste, if a happy marriage or Imperial Stout is what it takes to satisfy you, they will eventually destroy you. All idols eventually destroy their worshippers.

"The LORD will be awesome to them when he destroys all the gods of the land. The nations on every shore will worship him, every one in its own land" (Zeph 2:11).