My son and I recently went to Disney World. The big topic each day was which rides we would be targeting. Specifically, my son wanted to know whether the rides had big drops and were super fast ... those he wanted to avoid.

On the plane ride back from Orlando I was reading C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters, within which he talks about the small sins that take us slowly and quietly away from the people that we are designed to be, towards what Lewis calls "the Nothing". In Screwtape Letters, Lewis notes:

"...the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

Just as my son was focused on avoiding the rides with the big drops and fast speeds, we Christians often try to avoid only the "really bad" idols. We can proudly look down our nose at the adulterer, the greedy criminal, and the socially desperate. But do we stop to consider the cumulative number of seemingly smaller, but equally damaging idols in our own lives. While we may not commit adultery, we may desperately seek power within a church. Or while we are not locked up for fraud, we may desperately seek the admiration of others for our church achievements.

Evil tempts us in many ways, and it is the small temptations that, over time, get most of us. One day we wake up and realize how important some of these idols have become. We've been had!

When we are trying to be the person that we are designed to become, we need all the help we can get. God provides us this help when we make him the number one thing in our lives. When we put power or acceptance in front of God, we are on that gentle slope ... no sudden turns ... just a gradual path taking us away from the people we are designed to become.