As I sit down this morning to write, the news cycle is full of stories about Hamas attacking Israel. As I listened to the stories and attempted to process them all, I was drawn to Psalm 121:4:

Behold He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. (NASB) 

As I read the eight verses that make up this chapter, I was reminded of a commentary I once heard by Eugene Peterson in regard to the first two verses of this chapter: I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; From whence shall my hope come? My help comes from the Lord, Who made the heaven and the earth. 

We often refer to the good times as “mountain-top experiences.” And, in our twenty-first-century American perspective, that seems to be where our minds – or at least mine – go. However, Peterson shared this insight into these two verses. He related that these verses referred to the high places the pagans would worship, and as the Hebrew people were making their way to Jerusalem for Passover, the road they would have taken would have been in the valley below these pagan high places from where they could clearly see the pagan Ashtoreth poles and other idols of their worship.

As I remembered this commentary, my mind turned to all the ways we can so easily become distracted by those things (idols) our culture lifts up in celebration and – while they may not regard it as such – worship.

It is so easy to narrow our focus to the point that we believe idols to only be carved images of perceived gods, but an idol can be anything we allow to dictate our time, consume our focus, or absorb our energy, from career to status, lifestyle to a hobby turned obsession, offense, bitterness, pleasure, attention, religion, and the list goes on and on. In reality, anything can become an idol.

Idols can sneak into our lives so subtly that we may not even realize it. So, how do we keep our focus in phase and idols at bay? By reminding ourselves of the truth found in Psalm 121:

Our help and hope come from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.