1 Chronicles 16:26. "For all the gods of the peoples are idols; but the Lord made the heavens."

Father Mike Schmitz says we have "idol making hearts," and I am seeing more and more how true this is. Anything we place above God in importance or our obedience is an idol. An idol can even, very subtly, be our understanding of God if we refuse to listen to what God actually says about Himself and instead rely on ourselves to define who God is and what He wants. So don't think of "an idol" as just a deity worshiped by another religion or people. Think instead about whether something in your life is leading you to act or think in ways contrary to God's law, especially His law of love.

Absolutely anything can be an idol. There are obvious examples - like missing Mass for sports (idol: sports); devoting too much of ourselves to our jobs, while sacrificing our other duties (idol: the job, or money); or being dishonest in order to get what we want (idol: our will). But there are tons of less obvious examples, as well, like allowing our commitment to a good cause make us feel superior to others (idol :the cause, no matter how good it is); or choosing to follow some teachings of the Church, but not others, maybe thinking they are outdated (idol: our own understanding).

I like that David counters his point that all the gods of the people are idols with "but the Lord made the heavens." At first glance, this does not seem an obvious counterpoint - maybe I think my false god created the heavens, what then, David? (More on that later.) But this juxtaposition does get to the reason why we have idol making hearts - we want to understand and control what we worship. We want our gods to conform to us. As in my last example above, we want to pick and choose which rules to follow, and put them in God's mouth, because that is what we think is right. Remembering that God created the heavens, which we cannot control at all and do not understand very well, is a good reminder that the true God is beyond our control and understanding. Therefore, His laws are not to be understood but obeyed, not because He's a tyrant, but because that is what brings order to his Creation. Just look at the heavens - the sun comes up at its appointed time every day, thank God, because of God's order! When we substitute our judgment for God's laws, we create the disorder and disharmony we see all around us. We are like suns that refuse to come up. (This is bringing to mind a thought I've been chewing on for a while that maybe the reason the physics that explains the cosmos and the physics that explains us and our world at the particle level are different, and we have not been able to find the unified theory of everything, is because we have free will and are constantly interacting in unexpected (and un-God-like) ways with the world we live in. I will have to journal about that later!) 

Finally, getting back to my question to David, if I did believe in a false god who I thought created the heavens, it is possible, maybe even likely, that I would be persuadable to believe in the true God. I would not be believing in a God I was trying to control or define, I just would need further education as to who the God who created the heavens has revealed Himself to be. This is similar to the situation Paul encountered in Athens. It is true that some idols are actual false deities, and many of their believers will cling to them no matter what, but I do find people who believe in a God greater than themselves to be more persuadable to hearing about the true God than people who profess to believe in the true God, but are actually substituting their own understanding for who He has revealed Himself to be.