It was CS Lewis who wrote in Mere Christianity “Nearly all that we call human history… [is] the long, terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”
God himself opened Pandora’s box when he gave to every human being the freedom either to believe in him or not to believe in him. When you choose not to believe in him there is almost irresistible pressure to replace God with something or someone else.
The Biblical expression for the alternative to God is ‘an idol’.
Idolatry is consistently lambasted in the Old Testament. It is so serious that idolatry finds its way into the Ten Commandments (Exodus 29 vv3-4) ‘You shall have no other gods before me… you shall not bow down or serve them…’
Many are the idols that can be identified today for, in simple terms, anything or anyone that comes between you and God so as to interrupt his place as number 1 (he is Creator and Sustainer after all), is idolatrous.
For some, the family may come first; for others, sport or entertainment; money, sex or power are prime contenders for top position while even a church building can, for some, occupy a dominant (and wrongful) role.
So many are the idols that vie for the top position in our lives that, in previous times, people would isolate themselves completely from the world as hermits.
That is no real answer, for God needs visible witnesses to his truth;
Witnesses who put God in his rightful place – FIRST.