Hollow Gods
On the Search for peace and faithful love
I’ve spent a lot of my life running from things: insecurity, uncertainty, fear, conflict. Most of all, I was running from myself. My interior life—the thoughts and feelings that shaped my view of God, myself, others, and the world around me—was like being in one of those houses of mirrors at a carnival, where everything is disfigured and distorted.
As a teenager who felt powerless over much of both my exterior and interior life, I ran to drugs and alcohol. I was desperate for something to quiet the noise in my head and to dull the emotions running riot in my heart. For a little while, drugs and alcohol offered me some temporary respite—an escape from all that was out of my control.
But while under the influence of drugs and alcohol, I made terrible choices and found myself in frightening and humiliating situations—all of which increased my inner turmoil. Somewhere along the way, the drugs stopped working. I could no longer outrun myself. Shame, humiliation, and regret haunted me, no matter what or how much I used.
But on September 7, 1996, a God I wasn’t interested in gave me the gift of sobriety I wasn’t seeking. By God’s grace, I’ve been sober from drug and alcohol addiction for 30 years this month.
The Search For Peace
I have come to understand that much of my addiction was a quest for peace. Getting sober didn’t stop that search; it only changed the method and the means. During my 30 years of sobriety, more than half of which I have been following Jesus, I’ve still stumbled my way through life, often searching for something to solidify me, something to make me feel whole, and to be at peace with myself.
You might not be able to relate to my struggles with drug addiction, but maybe you know what it’s like to feel at odds with yourself. That gnawing in your gut. A sense of emptiness. Purposelessness. Shame. Regret. Discontentment. Restlessness. Unease.
Sometimes there is an inner dialogue. The voices might be quiet, almost imperceptible. Other times, they are noisy and disquieting. Sometimes they shame you, reminding you of all the ways you don’t measure up. Other times, they focus on people or situations in your life, blaming them for your circumstances or for all the ways your life isn’t what you hoped.
I’ve sought peace in good things and not-so-good things. Sometimes, I looked for it in relationships, hoping others would confirm my worth. Other times, I sought it in corporate jobs, community engagement, or ministry roles, striving for validation or affirmation. It has manifested in myriad ways—everything from perfectionism, people-pleasing, and self-improvement to escapism and numbing.
I wasn’t conscious of my quest at the time. And rarely was that my sole or even primary motivation. As my mentor frequently reminded me, our motives are, at best, often mixed. But when I look back, I can see that much of my striving was an effort to quiet the internal noise and to fill the sometimes cavernous void within me. It was all an effort to find peace.
Hollow Gods
When I look up images related to peace, my screen populates with tranquil, meditative images. It seems we associate the feeling of peace with serene settings—sunrises, dew-kissed pastures, and soft light. These images feel like a deep exhale, the kind where the tension that keeps your shoulders pinned to your ears releases and the constant brain chatter falls silent.
If I am honest, this is often the kind of peace I search for—the kind that promises escape from all that unsettles me. But that can lead me down a lot of dark alleys.
What I have learned in 30 years of sobriety and this quest for peace is that you cannot escape yourself. Wherever you go, there you are. I’ve also learned that I cannot live without peace—at least, not for long. Whenever I am at odds with myself, I am going to look for something or someone to soothe me.
And if I can’t find peace, I will settle for distraction. For me, the most immediate is my phone. In an instant, I can fill that gnawing emptiness with entertaining reels and mind-numbing chatter.
I used to think social media was the problem. So I took all the social apps off my phone. In their absence, I started scrolling through news sites, photos, recipes, Goodreads, and shopping sites—anything to drown out the internal noise.
It’s all vain efforts to treat an internal problem with an external solution.
The prophet Jonah accurately diagnosed the issue:
“Those who cherish worthless idols
abandon their faithful love.” Jonah 2:8, CSB
This verse unsettles me in a holy way. Eugene Peterson’s translation, The Message, captured the heart of this passage in an even more relatable way:
“Those who worship hollow gods, god-frauds,
walk away from their only true love.”
We use the term “idol” or “false gods” in Christian circles. The Bible depicts this in much of the Old Testament—people worshiping and sacrificing to other gods, such as Baal or Dagon. But they were also worshiping creations of their own imagination and the work of their own hands—things like a golden calf or images made of wood or metal.
It’s easy to distance ourselves from these ancient forms of worship. It can feel unrelatable and primitive in our more “enlightened” age. I mean, who worships a golden calf? But there’s nothing new under the sun. We just replaced golden calves with something more “acceptable.”
We can create a god out of anything: career, marriage, children, financial security, our social network, friendships, religion, ministry, hobbies. Even less tangible things like comfort, control, influence, or approval. And then we look to and perform for these gods in hopes of attaining peace.
But the Scripture calls them worthless. Hollow. The Hebrew word for worthless can also be translated as vapor, vanity, futility, or emptiness. These “god-frauds,” as Eugene Peterson calls them, are like the hollow chocolate easter bunnies I used to get as a child. There’s no substance to them. They crack under pressure.
A hollow god cannot fill up all that is hollow in me.
Faithful Love
In Exodus 20:3, God says, “Do not have other gods besides me.” Before becoming a believer, I thought this was because God was a jealous megalomaniac who incited fear in his followers and demanded their worship. God is holy and righteous, and I should approach him with reverence and respect. He does deserve my worship. But God doesn’t need my affirmation and accolades. He is God. Even if I fail to worship him, the rocks will cry out in praise (Luke 19:40).
God knows that all the things we reach for in search of peace are empty and that we pursue them in vain. They cannot fill the void in our own souls. They overpromise and underdeliver. Peace will never be found in hollow gods.
The Hebrew word for peace in the Old Testament is shalōm. Shalōm is a meaty word. It is not just the absence of conflict, but the presence of everything we need for wholeness.¹
“[Shalōm] is one of the most significant theological terms in Scripture and has a wide semantic range stressing various nuances of its basic meaning: totality or completeness. These nuances include fulfillment, completion, maturity, soundness, wholeness (both individual and communal), community, harmony, tranquility, security, well-being, welfare, friendship, agreement, success, and prosperity.”²
In nearly two-thirds of its occurrences, shalōm describes the total well-being, prosperity, and security associated with God’s presence among his people.³ It is not the outcome of our own endless striving; it’s God’s promised gift to us. This is the clarion call in Jonah’s message: Those who worship hollow gods “forsake their hope of steadfast love” (Jonah 2:8b, ESV).
The original Hebrew word often translated as “faithful” or “steadfast love” is hesed. This word is used over 200 times in Scripture, half of which occurs in the Psalms.
One of the most prominent passages occurs when God passes in front of Moses and proclaims of himself:
“The Lord—the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin” (Exodus 34:6-7, CSB).
This is how God describes himself. This is what he chooses to focus on, the core thing he wants Moses (and us) to know about him—his “Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.”⁴ And the OT authors thought these verses focused on God’s character were so important that they are quoted over 20 more times in the Scriptures. Hesed—steadfast, faithful lovingkindness—is the essence of God’s character, his very nature.
Hesed “is an act that preserves or promotes life. It is intervention on behalf of someone suffering misfortune or distress.”⁵ In this way, hesed is intimately connected to peace. It is God’s hesed—his promised love to pursue our good—that leads to shalōm—our wholeness and peace.
Perhaps this is why the psalms are so filled with proclamations of God’s hesed. Psalm 136 focuses entirely on the enduring nature of God’s steadfast love and the ways in which he displays that hesed to us: performing mighty miracles (v. 4), creating the world around us (vv. 5-9), rescuing and redeeming his people (vv.10-15), and leading, providing for, and protecting his children (vv. 16-21).
God’s hesed assures us that we are fully known and fully loved. And it is hesed that compels him to pursue us and do all that is necessary to move us toward shalōm. It is God’s faithful, steadfast love that leads to our peace. This is the only thing substantial enough to fill up all that is lacking in us and make us whole.
God loves us so fiercely and is so committed to restoring us that he became like us. Jesus is the tangible expression of God’s hesed. He grew in maturity, stature, and wisdom. He learned obedience as a son. He was tempted, in every way we are, to pursue the hollow gods of notoriety, power, self-reliance, and all other human cravings. He lived wholly dependent on the Father to nourish, sustain, and protect him—showing us the path to true peace. And then, in the greatest act of hesed, Jesus allowed himself to be broken so that we might be made whole.
To pursue hollow gods in our quest for peace is to abandon this faithful love. It is to reject the peace we long for and that God desires to give.
I believe this in the depths of my being, and yet, I am under no illusion. I will continue to find the allure of hollow gods tempting. I will find myself, at times, feasting on ashes instead of the bread of life. I will, once again, find myself searching for peace and wholeness where it can never be found. I will abandon faithful love for cheap substitutes. And so will you. But the steadfast love of God will not abandon us.
This is the only love that can quench the unquenchable thirst of our addictions. It’s the kind of love that is wholly committed to our peace and pursues our wholeness. It is the kind of love that presents itself every week—Christ’s body broken for us and his blood shed for us—inviting us to feed on him in our hearts by faith, with thanksgiving. This is the only substantive food that can truly satisfy our insatiable appetites and our quest for peace.
No hollow god can love us like that.
¹ To better understand the robust nature of the biblical concept of shalōm, check out this video from The Bible Project: https://bibleproject.com/videos/shalom-peace/
² Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “Peace,” in Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 1634.
³ R. F. Youngblood, “Peace,” in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Revised, ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1979–1988), 732.
⁴ Lloyd-Jones, Sally, Jesus Storybook Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Zonderkidz, 2007).
⁵ JoAnna M. Hoyt, Amos, Jonah, & Micah, Evangelical Exegetical Commentary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 468.
6 To learn more about God’s hesed, check out these videos from The Bible Project: Character of God and Loyal Love.
Engage the Scripture
Read Isaiah 55. You might want to read it in a couple of different translations. What do you notice about God’s posture in this passage? What does he invite us to? Write down all of your observations.
Read Psalm 136. Write down all the things the psalmist associates with God’s steadfast love (hesed).
Explore Your Story
When, or in what ways, do you feel most at odds with yourself?
Take a few minutes to think about your own search for peace.
When I feel at odds with myself, what do I instinctively reach for?
What do I use to numb, distract, validate, or soothe myself?
Where do I find myself thinking, “If I only had ____, I’d be ok.”
What am I most afraid would surface in me if I stopped distracting or soothing myself with these things?
3. Think about the hollow gods you identified above.
What does this thing I reach for promise me?
What does it deliver?
What does it cost me?
Encounter the Savior
In John 14:27, Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you.”
How have you previously understood biblical peace or what Jesus meant by peace in this context?
Now read it in the following translations:
“I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.” NLT
“I’m leaving you well and whole. That’s my parting gift to you. Peace. I don’t leave you the way you’re used to being left—feeling abandoned, bereft. So don’t be upset. Don’t be distraught.” MSG
2. What do you notice? What words stand out? How do these translations change or enhance your understanding of your search for peace and the peace Jesus promised us?
Experience shalom
1. Think about your lack of peace as spiritual hunger—an empty spiritual stomach. During communion, we are invited to come to the table and partake of a meal—bread and wine—Christ’s body and blood. Why do you think Jesus left us with a physical meal for our spiritual hunger? How might that change your experience of communion?
2. When you feel at odds with yourself, pause and practice this breath prayer:
Inhale: Lord,
Exhale: Make me whole.
3. When you wake in the mornings, pray this prayer based on Psalm 90:14a:
“God, my soul is hungry. Satisfy me today with your unfailing love (hesed).”
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