Our Idols – What We Worship

We’re a terribly independent sort.  There’s a bedeviling, yet fundamentally inherent need to be free of anything that we might have to be subservient to, or pass any degree of credit off to.  We want to pen the lines as the single and sole author of the text.

Yet, despite our convictions to the contrary we all worship something.  We all have our idols.  Because of our elemental sense of inadequacy, there’s always something in our lives that we grant some degree of elevated status to.  Since we worship something, we might want to consider what it is and if it warrants the status that we’ve granted it.

We Worship What We Can Control

We worship something.  Yet, in the worshipping we have an inherent need to maintain an element of control.  Total relinquishment is totally frightening for most of us.  Therefore, what we choose to worship is something that can be sufficiently nudged or prompted in small or large ways depending upon the degree of deviation it’s asking of us.

We Worship What Matches Our Agenda

We want what we worship to be in agreement with our agenda.  We don’t want some alternative course that wanders off to some other horizon that we have no interest in exploring.  We’ve set our course, we charted our trajectory, and in our minds we’re already on our way.  So, what we worship has one of one option: it joins us or it joins us.

We Worship What’s Most Comfortable

Comfort is king.  For us, it’s the indicator that things are right where they should be, verses being the shrieking alarm that’s telling us that we’re not anywhere close to where we need to be.  The goal of comfort is at the self-same time the abandonment of great accomplishments.  So we pick something to worship that gives us permission to find that safe spot, sit down, and protect ourselves as the world goes by.

We Worship What’s Likely to Be Accepted

We want to fit-in in a manner that others will ultimately want to fit in with us.  In our minds, acceptance validates that we’re on the right path, when acceptance is more a sign of compromise than a confirmation of being correct.  Therefore, whatever we worship has to largely be accepted by the masses of the lost verses a commitment of the courageous.

We Worship What Gives Us the Biggest Payoff

We’re all about the endgame and the bottom line.  What’s in it for us?  What’s the payoff?  What dividends is this going to pay, and what do I need to do to maximize them?  We want to worship something that promises maximum payoff for minimum effort.  We want to be sitting pretty when it’s all done.

Destructive Worship

We all worship something.  But if what we worship embraces any of these attributes, the thing we worship will most certainly be our undoing.  You worship something.  You might take a moment and ask exactly what that is before you’re undone.