“When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon. And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the LORD.” I Samuel 5:2-3

Imagine the cheering. The Philistines had just defeated Israel, and now they were carrying the Ark of the Covenant into their temple. They placed the ark in front of their god, Dagon. The people must have been elated! Their armies had just won a battle, and they foolishly thought that their god had beaten the Jehovah of the Israelites. The party didn’t last long.

In the morning, the people of Ashdod learned a lesson about the one true God. They went into the temple to find their idol face down in the dirt before the ark. They propped Dagon up again, but the next morning, not only was Dagon on his face before the ark, his head and hands were cut off. The people begged for the ark to be removed — they knew they had offended a powerful God that was punishing the population with illness. Every place the ark was sent to was painfully afflicted.

Our God is a jealous God. He did not allow an idol to stand before Him. He will not allow anyone or anything to be more important in our hearts and minds than He is. Consider that: the Creator of all things is jealous over you! God still loves you enough to be jealous, even though he knows every little thing about you. He wants you to trust Him and follow His guidelines. Isn’t that amazing?

Here’s the catch: He loves you, wants to spend time with you, wants to give you every good gift, but he cannot do that until you let Him! You probably aren’t worshipping an idol like Dagon, but is God truly the most important thing in your life? It’s very easy to let good things distract us from the best thing, to let urgent things overwhelm that which is most important. What is really the focus of your thoughts? It could be anything, but if it isn’t God, it’s an idol — and that means it needs to be reprioritized. If we don’t put God at the very forefront of our existence, we miss the best adventure we could ever hope for — loving and serving Almighty God.