Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters

We learn that through all of life there runs a ground note of cosmic disappointment. You are never going to lead a wise life until you understand that.

If you are angry, ask, “Is there something here too important to me, something I must have at all costs?” Do the same thing with strong fear or despair and guilt. Ask yourself, “Am I so scared, because something in my life is being threatened that I think is a necessity when it is not? Am I so down on myself because I have lost or failed at somethi

C. S. Lewis says at the end of his great chapter on hope, reorient the entire focus of your life toward God. He concludes, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world [something supernatural and eternal].”35

Most of the forces that make us who we are lie in the hand of God.

No person, not even the best one, can give your soul all it needs.

This takes what are called “the spiritual disciplines,” such as private prayer, corporate worship, and meditation. 123 The disciplines take cognitive knowledge and make it a life-shaping reality in our hearts and imaginations. Spiritual disciplines are basically forms of worship, and it is worship that is the final way to replace the idols of your

Our patterns of spending reveal our idols.

from the troubles of life in a way that only God can.

There was something we have grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality.