The Worshiper

Once we created idols - cheaper versions of our God, diminished to lower-case gods - it didn't take long before the focus began to shift. 

See, the thing about idols is that they have no personality of their own. They have no will, no volition, no ability to act except in accordance with how we have formed them. If you look at the way that humans have engaged in idol worship since the very early days, one pattern emerges: 

Tit for tat. 

It's not raining? The gods of the crops must need more food. Let us make more sacrifices. We aren't fertile? The fertility gods are mad at us. Let us make amends. And on and on and on, and all that really matters in your relationship with an idol is...what you do for the idol. 

The gods of the nations have always rested firmly on the actions of the people who worship them. The people believe that if they do this or that, then the god must respond in this or that way. If something is happening, it is the human's behavior - not the god's desire - that changes the outcome. 

So as we have replaced the Lord our God with cheaper idols designed to give us just what we want without all the expectations of a holy God, we have also, slowly, but surely, replaced the Worshiped with the worshiper. 

It's all about us. 

Which is exactly what we wanted. 

When we started this conversation, we were talking about how we, as humans, especially in the last few decades of mass production, have always craved the status symbol of certain things, but at a price point that we can actually afford. That is, we want to appear richer, happier, stronger, more successful than we actually are. That's how the whole knock-off trend got started. 

So we did it with our gods. We created cheaper gods in our own image, turned it so that the worship is all about us, so that we control what happens and not any character or volition or action of the god itself, and then, we manipulated our idols so that we come out on top. 

We live the blessed, favored, glorified, good life, and we credit it to our worship, to our god made in our image, who we have somehow satisfied by our own righteousness, faithfulness, holiness, whatever, and wow! Our lives look so impressive! This is the kind of faith that everyone should aspire to...isn't it?

Believe it or not, many of these men and women are the role models of our faith. They've done so good at their knock-offs that most of us can't even tell the difference any more. We think, just like they tell us, that it's real worship of the real God. 

Kind of like how you sometimes can't tell a knock-off from the real thing until you get really, really close.