Unpacking the Golden Calfs in Our Modern Hearts: Nana Dolce

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Unpacking the Golden Calves in Our Modern Hearts

Guest:Nana Dolce

From the series:You Are Redeemed (Day 3 of 3)

Air date:April 16, 2025

Nana:You are an idolater; you will mess up; you will trip; you will fall—you will even, I’m thinking of myself as a mother—”Oh, how many times have I put my own idolatry on my children?” I love when my kids look good; and sometimes, there’s a temptation to help my children perform in front of other people. It’s not honest; it’s really for me to look good. I never want to put that pressure on them—they have to be perfect pastor’s kids, who know Latin and Greek, and perform well in front of everyone—that’s Mommy’s idolatry.

Ann:Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Ann Wilson.

Dave:And I’m Dave Wilson. And you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Dave: You know, this is a strange way to start a program—but I can tell you this—I’ve never, and never will, build a golden calf.

Ann:I thought you were going to say, “Nana Dolce in the house!”

Dave:Well, Nana Dolce’s in the house. And that’s why I’m thinking about a golden calf—not because of you—but because of this devotional you’ve written.

Ann:But what could you, or have you, built instead of the golden calf?

Dave:I was going to say, “Don’t ask me if I’ve ever worshiped something besides God.” I have, and that’s a golden calf.

We get to go back, in the book of Exodus, to one of the most epic stories in the Bible.

Ann:And we’re doing that by talking about Nana’s new devotional. What’s it called again?

Dave:You Are Redeemed.

Ann:You remembered it this time: You Are Redeemed.

Dave:So Nana, welcome back.

Nana:Thank you.

Dave:We’ve been everywhere so far in the last two days. Again, if you missed the last two days, go back and listen; because we’re talking about a 40-day devotional you’ve written for women, really, and walking through this amazing book of Exodus.

As we said, “What do you want to talk about today?” You said, “The golden calf story.”

Nana:Yes.

Dave:Why that one?

Nana:Oh, well, I think it’s what you said at the beginning; it’s easy to think, “Oh, golden calf idolatry, to that level, never me”; right?

Ann:Yeah; and “Aaron, what?! Come on; how could you do that?!”

Nana:Absolutely; absolutely.

Ann:I still think it.

Dave:Well, Nana’s going to tell us why he could do it today.

Ann:Oh, good.

Nana:Well, there’s a quote that I always remember that says that our heart is an idol factory. It’s so easy to carve an idol, not physically. Whenever we’re tempted to make our value, and the source of our identity, in our life anything other than the God, who has redeemed, we’re carving an idol.

Ann:Do we have to go there today and be so convicted?

Dave:I think we do.

Nana:Oh; but there’s so much grace too.

Ann:There is; I know.

Dave:At the same time, I don’t think we realize we do this. Every once in a while when I’m speaking—we do this at the Family Life Weekend to Remember—there’s a moment where we share the gospel on Saturday morning: try to help them see that all of us are sinners. I do this thing—I’ve done it at church—it’s so fun to do; say, “Everybody stand up.” The whole room stands up. Maybe a thousand people—five hundred—whatever it is. I say, “Here’s what I’m going to do: going to do a little exercise. I’m going to read the Ten Commandments, starting with number one. If you’ve broken that commandment, sit down. If not, stay standing up.”

Do you know how many people are still standing after number one? Most of the room. They look at me, like, “Never done that.”

Nana:Yeah.

Dave:“I’ve never worshiped anything other than God.” And most of them go down to number three—taking the Lord’s name in vain—boom! The room goes down.

But obviously, when I get done, I go, “Do you realize, if we understood number one, none of us make it past number one? We have all built a golden calf.” So help us understand: “What does that mean?”

Nana:Absolutely. Actually, you know what I want to do at this point? Ann was saying, “Oh, do we have to start with this one?” I actually want to remind us that:

When we get here, God has already chosen Israel to be His people. And that is true of you if you are listening today—and if you are in the Lord Jesus—it is not because you passed the Ten Commandment list/the Ten Commandment test; it’s not because of that.

I love how, after God brings them through the waters, through all the grumbling with Mara and the bitterness, and through grumbling again for food, He rains down manna. He’s gotten them all the way to this point, where they are at the feet of Mount Sinai. Before He ever gives them the Ten Commandments, He reminds Moses to tell them that [paraphrase]: “I was like an eagle,” —a mama eagle—”who swooped down and picked up My people. I brought you to Myself to be My people”; that is in Exodus 19. The Ten Commandments will be in Exodus 20, so God doesn’t require Israel to obey in order to be His people; He redeems them.

Ann:Good point.

Nana:And then, says, “You’re My children now; I’m your Father. Here are the household laws and rules,”—really—”to prepare you for a holiness that allows you to be with a God, who is holy, and is a consuming fire.”

Dave:What you just said is so deep and so important for us to understand: that we are chosen before we obey.

Nana:Yes, yes.

Dave:And we only obey because we’re chosen.

Nana:Exactly.

Dave:It’s not “to be [chosen]”; it’s “because of [being chosen].”

Ann:Exactly.

Dave:That’s deep stuff.

Nana:Yeah.

Ann:I’m also reminded because you said—He brought the water; He supplied the manna—but remember, too, that the pillar of fire was there at night; and the cloud they followed during the day. They had a visual of God and were watching Him. And in all that time, it appears that He’s just judging them; but you’re saying: “He’s not only chosen them, He loves them.”

Nana:He loves them. It reminds me—I’m a mom through adoption—my two sons, whom I have adopted, I love to use in the devotional. I talk about the word, “claim.” When we adopt our children, I did not adopt my sons because they looked like Dolces first; I simply claimed them as my own. And the love that I have for my children, who are biological, is the love I have for those sons through adoption; they are mine.

More and more, they might sound like Daddy, and sound like Mommy, and conform to the ways of being a Dolce; but they didn’t have to act that way in order to be chosen. We chose them first; and then, in being with us more and more, they’ll look like us. That’s what God does for all of us: you are chosen first!

So even when we get to Exodus 32, and we see this incredible idolatry, God is already committing Himself to this group of people as His possession. They are His/God; and Israel is His people.

Dave:Yeah; it’s amazing.

Ann:Take our listeners there; read what happens.

Nana:All this time, God has been speaking to Israel through Moses the Ten Commandments; they heard Him audibly. It says He spoke directly to them; and then, He welcomed them to Mount Sinai to have a meal with Him, the elders [Exodus 24:1]. And then, He sent everybody down, except for Moses. Moses is up there, getting the household rules, so to speak—all of these laws; and specifically, these laws are about this temple that God wants to build—this tabernacle—so He can dwell with Israel. He has His mind and heart on getting His people ready, so He can dwell with them.

And what is Israel doing? They’re at the bottom, and they’re getting impatient. Moses has been there for 40 days; and they’re like, “We didn’t ask for this. Moses; we don’t know what happened to this guy. Hey, Aaron,”—Moses’ big brother—”get up and make gods for us.” You would think that Aaron—who, at the top of the mountain, God is electing him to be the high priest of Israel—at the foot of the mountain, he’s collecting pieces of gold that God had plundered from Egypt; God had provided that gold. They take His gold, and they mold it into a golden calf.

This is what the people said of the idol they made—this is verse 4 of Exodus 32—“And he took the gold from them, fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it into an image of a calf. Then they said, ‘Israel, these are your gods,’—lowercase G—’these are your gods, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.’” They credit to this idol the redemption that God had purchased for them.

It says, “When Aaron saw this,”—all of a sudden, it’s like, maybe, he came to his senses when he hears that the people are crediting the idols—”When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of it; and made an announcement: ‘There will be a festival to the LORD”—capital L-O-R-D—tomorrow.” That has always been interesting to me. It’s almost like Aaron wanted to clean up—it’s an idol—the people of Israel just credited the idol for their redemption. And Aaron is like, “Oh, okay; well, let me build something else. I’m going to make an altar; and we’re going to throw a festival for Yahweh, for the LORD.” He is adding true religion—spiritualizing something—that is actually idolatry; that is actually sin.

I wonder how often we’re tempted to do the same.

Ann:What’s that look like for us?

Nana:Let me give you an illustration. I love biographies; I just think that they’re delightful to read. This past year, I read Frederick Douglass: The Narrative of the Life of an American Slave. There was a portion of that narrative that I thought of when I was thinking of Aaron. This is what Frederick Douglass says in the book; he says:

I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which everywhere surround me. We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, cradle-plunderers for church members. The man, who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week, fills the pulpit on Sunday and claims to be the minister of the meek and lowly Jesus.

Ann:Woo!

Nana:That’s scathing. We know this happened within the context of slavery: where you will have somebody, who proclaims Christ; and yet, there is no evidence of that meek and lowly Jesus, that gentle Jesus, in the way they treat other human beings.

Again, most of us listening to this, we’re going to say: ”Oh, that’s horrible,”—

Ann:“How could they do that?”

Nana:—and “I am so, so far from that.” Oh, but there are many times, I know in my own heart, when I will—because I desire to do something, and I kind of don’t want to give it up—I’m just going to Christianize it, or spiritualize it, or soften it, or make a scene like Aaron did—like I’m actually worshiping God—when it’s an idol that I want to keep.

Ann:Can you name what that is?—or something that we could do, as a society, or as people?

Nana:I think that if we are in Christ, one of the things we need to remember is what we started with: He loves us, and He claimed us before we ever had to perform anything. God is committed to His people, and His desire is our holiness; His desire is to prepare us to dwell with Him. We are going to fall short. I don’t want the listener, listening this day to today’s program, to be filled just with conviction and to be filled just with shame. You are an idolater; you will mess up; you will trip;—

Ann:We all are.

Nana:—yes, you will fall—you will even, I’m thinking of myself as a mother—“Oh, how many times have I put my own idolatry on my children, and called it Christian faithfulness?” I love when my kids look good; I’ll confess that. I do; I love when they sound really smart; especially, because they’re homeschooled. It reflects well on their teacher when they can tell you the Greek and the Latin. I like when they look good; and sometimes, there’s a temptation to have my children perform in front of other people—and it’s not honest—it’s really for me to look good. I never want to put that pressure on them—they have to be perfect pastor’s kids, who know Latin and Greek, and who perform well in front of everyone—that’s Mommy’s idolatry.

I could hold onto that and just call it Christian discipleship. I could be like Aaron, and just put some good stuff on it, and make it seem like I’m actually being a faithful mom. So I mess up; I trip and fall. Remember: He redeemed me before I ever obeyed. He brought me to life through His Spirit because of the work of Jesus. And slowly but surely, He points to those sins; and He helps me to hate them more, and more, and more; because He’s getting me ready to dwell with Him forever.

Dave:As I think of the story of Aaron, and the altar, and the calf, is it possible—do you ladies think to build an altar, and worship God with an idol—simultaneously? It isn’t, but that’s what he’s trying to do.

Nana:Yeah.

Ann:Oh, yeah.

Dave:He won’t tear down the calf. What you hope he’d do is—this is 12 chapters ago, guys: “we got the Ten Commandments; we know the house rules; we know what God expects; this calf has got to burn up, right here, now,”—but like you said: “Instead, he builds a little religion around it—and sort of Christianizes it, and sanitizes it—and says, ‘I think we can have both.’” Man, what a picture of our lives: “I can have this, and this.” It’s like: “You can’t love mammon and God—it’s one or the other—you have to tear it down.”

Ann:It reminds me a little bit of the churches in Revelation: “You’re doing this right, but you’re doing this. I have this against you,” He says. “Yeah, I don’t think we can keep those calves up; we do need to tear them down.” What do you think it looks like, Nana?—to tear the calves down.

Nana:What was ringing in my mind, as you all were speaking, is “King Jesus will have no other God before Him.” That’s the kind of God He is. It’s not going to be—

Ann:We started with the Ten Commandments.

Nana:And He is so much better for you than this thing. He’ll have no other God before Him.

Ann:—for our own good.

Nana:—for our own good. He is who we need; He is the treasure; He’s the healer; He’s the One who satisfies. And praise God for that.

I think that being in Christian community is so useful; it’s so useful. When Moses comes down, and Aaron gives him that pathetic excuse in verses 21 through about 24, where he’s like—well, he blames it on the people—he says, “They did this; and then, I threw the gold; and it just came up,”—which is another thing we can do sometimes. We blame shift; we minimize our role.

Ann:Yes, Adam and Eve: “This woman you gave me…”

Nana:Exactly; exactly. But Moses doesn’t say, “Oh, okay; that makes sense.” He says, “No, Aaron,”—he puts the blame on Aaron squarely—he says, “The people broke loose, and you caused them to do that.”

Christian community is helpful to us when we are—especially, in the context of a church that is just doing life together—we believe that we don’t have to act or perform; that we are sinners: we will trip and fall; we are claimed by God. And that’s the end of the story. There isn’t anything you can do to shake this God loose from you; He is committed to you, and He’s committed to dwelling with you. When we believe that, we’re free to call each other out—we’re free to say, “Hey, sis; I see this thing happening. What’s going on?”—we need Christian community to tear down the idols in our hearts.

Ann:I’ve heard people say before—it seems like they don’t know God; they don’t know Jesus—they’ll say, “God’s such a narcissist. He wants us to worship Him and Him alone. It seems like it’s all about Him.” And I’ll say, “No, it’s out of His love; because He knows we will find no satisfaction anywhere else. He’s dwelling with us, because He loves us. He wants us to experience His love, and His freedom, and the joy that comes from following Him.”

Nana:Absolutely.

Ann:Have you heard people say that?

Nana:I have. I’ve heard people say, “Oh, the God of the Old Testament was so mean. And the God of the New Testament is full of love.” I’m like, “Oh, He’s the same God. The mercy that He shows us, through Christ in the New Testament, we see it in the Old Testament. I love Exodus 34, because this is how God describes Himself. I think if God had an Instagram page or a Facebook page—you know how we have the little bio that we write about: “This is who I am…”—this is who God says He is. In verse 6, He passes by Moses—this is after the sin of idolatry—He comes to Moses; He judges the people, but He also restores them. He says this of Himself:

The LORD, the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God. He is slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. He will not leave the guilty unpunished. He will bring the father’s iniquity to the children and the grandchildren to a third and fourth generation.

He is a good judge; He is a God who doesn’t pass over sin. That’s, actually, a good judge. If somebody stole your car, you wouldn’t want the judge to just sweep it under a rug; you want justice. And God is a God who deals with sin; but at the same time, He is full of love—gracious—abounding in love, steadfast love. Isn’t that the picture of the cross?

Ann:Yes.

Nana:The way God describes Himself in Exodus 34, we see that perfectly revealed on the cross—where we see both justice and God’s steadfast, overflowing, merciful, abounding love for His people—so yes, He’s a gracious God; He judges sin. And remember, Christian, that judgment has fallen on His Son; it fell on Jesus.

Ann:Such a good reminder.

Dave:I’ll tell you: I’m still back at—because of that love, because of the cross, because of His grace; because he let Moses redo the tablets—I want to tear down every idol. Moses did come down, and say, “This has got to go down.” Aaron didn’t do it; but I’m like, “I still let idols in my life.”

Ann:I was going to ask you what you think your idols are.

Dave:Oh, I know what mine are.

Ann:We’ve talked about this recently.

Dave:We have?

Ann:Well, I told you what I thought your idol was.

Dave:That’s how it usually goes for us husbands. The wives tell us.

Ann:But I told you what mine was.

Dave:I don’t remember what—tell them—what’d you tell me?

Ann:I said mine was my kids. It’s easy for me to love them so much; I want to protect them. And grandkids can come before God; I could find my satisfaction from them. It used to be you, Dave; now, it’s switched to my kids.

I think yours is the security of money—not in having a lot of money—but finding your security there.

Dave:That’s it. Yep; could be a house; could be a car;—

Ann:Aren’t you glad I pointed that out to you?

Dave:—could be a guitar. It could be a bank account—like a number—I’ve laid in bed at night, thinking, “If the number is a number I feel comfortable with, I’m okay.” And if it isn’t: “Is God enough for me to be okay?”

One of the things I think about, for me—and I think it’s true for all of us—to tear down an idol, in some ways, is to give it away. I think one of the reasons—and people hate this; I know as a preacher, whenever you talk about money, people get funny—like you’re dealing with something that’s very important; I think it’s because that’s our idol. When we say in church: “God’s calling us to give a percentage of money away,”—and they hear “Ten percent,”—most people are like, “Are you kidding me?” And then, when you step back and go, “Wait a minute. So you keep nine out of ten—and give God one—and you’re upset? It sounds like, ‘Oh, my goodness.’”

But I think that’s a step—when we do that with our money; or our possessions; or even our pride, if it’s affirmation and accolades I want—instead of that, I want to give them to somebody else. It’s a way to loosen the grip of that idol in your life. I think giving is an exercise that God gave us for ourselves. He doesn’t need the money, but He is like, “You need to break this idol. One way to do it’s just give a little bit back, give a little bit away.”

Ann:I’m not going to give my kids away or my grandkids away, but I will lay them on the altar, just like Abraham did with Isaac, like, “Lord, they’re Yours. They are not going to fill me; and I won’t try to control them, because they belong to you.”

How do you—

Nana:—control?

Ann:Yes, the control piece. How do you deal with any idols that you might have, Nana?

Nana:I mentioned how I love my children as well; and specifically, when they look good in front of others.

Dave:Yes, you did say that.

Dave:It makes you look good.

Nana:Yeah, it does.

Ann:So that would be your idol.

Nana:It does. So there have been moments when I’ve had to apologize, and say, “You are free; you are free to fall, to mess up.” Now, I pray for my children fervently, as the Bible says, we disciple them as well as we can. I’m not saying don’t do those things; but they are sinners, and they are children. I think I loosen the grip of that idol when I allow them to be that. And when I have people call me out—when I lose sight of that—again, I think community is so helpful. Being in a relationship, perhaps with another mom, to say, “You can call me out when you see that, and we can pray for our children together.”

Ann:That’s good.

Dave:I would just—we can end our three days with you saying to our listeners—“We’re going to help you break an idol called money. Send some our way, and we’ll send you Nana Dolce’s devotional, You Are Redeemed.” I’m being facetious; we’re smiling. But we do appreciate it when you pray for us—and you give to FamilyLife—it really means a lot. One of the ways we say, “Thanks,” is we want to give you a gift back. This time, it’ll be You Are Redeemed. Go to FamilyLifeToday.com, and give there; or call us at 800-358-6329.

Ann:I’ll just remind you that Nana has a devotional—a video devotional—out with us. You can grab that series by going to FamilyLife.com/Unseen. And then, we’ll also link that in our show notes.

I don’t know if you know this; but we, at FamilyLife, would love to pray for you. I think one of the greatest gifts that we can give people is to pray for them. We have a team, here at FamilyLife, that would love to pray for you. You can go to FamilyLife.com/PrayForMe; and I promise you: somebody’s going to be praying for you, so be specific with what your needs are. And here’s the best part: God answers; God hears; God sees; and He is there for you. And we want to be there for you, too; so go to FamilyLife.com/PrayForMe.

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