When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us . . . .

So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf . . . . (Exodus 32:1a,3–4a)

When considerable time had passed and the Israelites did not see Moses coming back—so as not to bother God and in case His watch was broken—they made a golden calf to help speed things up. Of course, Israel’s worship of the golden calf made God angry. Moses, himself angry, threw down the tablets God had made, breaking them. The Israelites had to wait another forty days for Moses as he replaced them.

We are no different from the Israelites. We, too, are willing to give up our jewelry to keep paying for our false gods—false helpers. We carve out an exercise/diet pill regimen to speed up our journey because we do not want to eat less food. We say, “Don’t tell Gwen, but let’s mix Weigh Down with diet pills to get us out of this desert faster.” You will only stay in the desert longer because your heart does not want to eat less food…