Rethinking Some Idolatry

Can I really love my child too much? The more I think about this question, the more I become convinced that the answer is "No." Throughout my Christian upbringing I have been taught that I can love anything too much. Traditional teaching on this says that when I love my child too much I am committing spiritual idolatry because I am loving him/her more than my Lord. I want to challenge that thought. Where in Scripture does it define idolizing people that way? I can't find any passage that teaches that. If you can, please let me know. However, I suggest a different way of looking at the "problem." Typically, we compare our love for God against our love for other things (money, sex, children, etc.). We talk about this in a way that says we need to prioritize these things biblically (God, family, church, etc.). We give God priority in these things, as we should. But should we make distinctions between these things? I think we should. We are told to not to love certain things (Hebrews 13:5). And we are told to love other people (Matthew 22:36). What I am putting forth is that we should love people and should not love things. Sure, we often talk that way and say, "I love these new shoes." Most of us don't mean it in the same way as "I love my mom." If we do, then there's a problem. What bearing does this have on idolatry? Well, remember the original question? I don't think we can love people too much. Sure, we can wrongly prioritize our love for people. For instance, a woman can desert her husband for another man. However, I don't think it is possible to love another person too much. As long as I love my Lord more than any other person, then I am free to love them as much as I want. This is where I believe the problem comes in our understanding of idolatry. Idolatry is to love something more than the Lord. So, perhaps the problem is our capacity of love for God. What we should do is confess our lack of love to the Lord and ask Him to change our hearts. We need to cry out to Him, seeing that our love for Him pales in comparison to our love for someone else. Our prayer should reflect the thoughts in Luke 14:26, which says, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple."