Since I've been learning all along, but especially today, that vulnerability is something that should increase as you become more and more rooted in the Lord, I will be vulnerable with you here and now.
One of my biggest idols for about half of my life was liking guys. And while it was specific guys that I would like, my idol was moreso just having someone to daydream, think, talk and pray about.
I realize that liking somebody isn't sin in itself. I actually think that romanctic love is one of the big ways that the Lord is glorified through our hearts as humans.
It became an idol though, because I allowed it to be my god. I based my relationship with God on how my love life was. When someone would ask me how I was, I would reply based on my relationship with the person I liked. When I prayed, a majority of the content of my prayers would concern the guy I liked at the time and my relationship with him. Not to mention that my conversations with other people always seemed to gravitate toward the same thing. Some of those things aren't bad in and of themselves. But when they take over, they become idols. Same with anything else except God.
And then, the Lord gave me a more specific and clear definition of what an idol is through this song:
"Anything I put before my God is an idolI mean I had heard that anything you put before God is an idol. But what did that really look like? And if I didn't know what that looked like, how could I guard against letting it take root in my heart? Once in a while I would try to check my heart and think."It seems fine. I mean I'm not taking this relationship into my own hands. I'm trusting God with it." But the fact that I always had a relationship on my mind was what my biggest idol was - and I didn't even see it.
Anything I want with all my heart is an idol
Anything I can’t stop thinking of is an idol
And anything that I give all my love is an idol"
He's showed and is showing me
A) What an idol really is.
and
B) The fact that I need to continually be asking the Holy Spirit to search, point out and pull out all the idols that I have allowed to take root in my heart. Because not only do I not have the strength to pull them out on my own-I can't even see them without His help.
I am a work in progress (and will be my entire life), but the Lord has been delivering me from my idols more every day that I desire His will for my heart.
That's not to say that I can't like someone, but He is the one who has to have my heart first and always first. That is what He asks of me and that's the way He designed it to be. So I (over and over again) clear the stage for Him, with His help and ask that through me, He would make much of Himself.