It breaks my heart when I see young ladies consumed with Hollywood...when I hear them talking about how they have to get home to watch Teen Mom or American Idol like the world will end if they miss it.  As I sit here and ponder the News as of late my heart becomes heavily burdened.  People like Charlie Sheen and Lindsey Lohan are constantly in the news.  I shudder when I see headlines about actresses' cellulite and pictures of them at the beach with their families.  I would be devastated if someone plastered pictures of me in a bikini on the covers of magazines and then talked about how ugly my thighs are!  Can you imagine?  No wonder all of these rich and famous people don’t seem to be holding up too well. I wonder if there isn’t some common denominator between these troubled souls. How could those who have so much fame, talent, and not to mention enough money to purchase for them their every object of desire, be so self-destructive? I can’t help but think of the fates of those such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and Kurt Cobain, whose status of fame may as well have been elevated to sainthood. And then it hits me, what if the common denominator is not solely their individual self-destructiveness, but what if it includes the destructiveness of American Idolatry?

It seems to me that idolizing a human being isn’t just unhealthy and destructive for the one doing the idolizing, but also for the one being idolized. If there is any truth in this notion, namely, that it simply is not healthy (or to use politically incorrect language, it is simply morally wrong) for a person to be worshipped and idolized, then the American population is partly to blame for the broken state and the troubled fate of so many bold and indeed talented souls. Can we not appreciate a person’s talent and beauty without obsessing over what they wore at the Oscars or what person they are dating this week as opposed to last week? Is any single person worthy of this excessive attention or infatuation?

In Romans 1, the apostle Paul condemns the human race for suppressing the truth of God; he says that we should have seen God’s invisible attributes through that which is displayed in the created world. He goes on to declare that we didn’t honor God, but exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man. We failed and continue to fail to rightly credit the Creator, and instead we worship and serve the creatures that He has created. When we gaze upon the beauty or marvel at the talent of another and we fail to recognize that it is God alone who is the author and the source, we are not only lying to ourselves but we are doing a great disservice to our fellow man.

To have the American masses track your every move, fall at your feet, and even scream and shed tears in your presence—knowing all the while that you yourself are subject to the same kind of sickness and eventual death as the common folk—may be flattering for a moment, but in the end it is merely isolating, oppressive, and repulsive. Our obsession with the rich and famous places them in an impossible position, for there is only one name under heaven that is meant to be adored and there is only one being who will not be destructed by our worship. There is only one who remains pure and holy despite His glorious, incomprehensible, inevitable, and yes, eternal fame!

God doesn’t have an emotional need for our worship. Believe me, he gets plenty of it! For even the angelic beings shouted as they watched Him place the stars in the sky and even now as I, a small speck on this globe, push buttons on a key-board, the entire heavens and earth declare of His glory! It is He who measured the waters in the hollow of His hand. It is He who weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills in a pair of scales. To whom then shall we liken God? Or what likeness shall we compare with Him? We Americans, like the craftsmen of old, are guilty of seeking out and fashioning for ourselves meaningless idols—we create them, we gaze upon them, we place hope in them, and then we condemn them when they don’t deliver and meet our needs and expectations. At the end of the day, idolizing a person is as futile as worshipping a wooden statue, for both are corruptible and they shall both return to the dust. God alone is incorruptible, and not only does He alone deserve man’s worship but He is the only being who is not corrupted by man’s worship! He is the one who reduces powerful rulers to nothing and makes even the judges of the earth meaningless…truly, He merely blows on them and they wither.

So I, a Christian who is guilty of standing in the checkout line reading the latest People magazine, and I, who have possibly spent hundreds of dollars on InStyle magazines, join my voice with the prophet Isaiah, “who shall we liken God…who shall be His equal?” And I am revitalized by the answer to this rhetorical question: "no one." "Let us lift up our eyes on high and see who has created the stars…for He calls them by name and because of the greatness of His might and the strength of his power, not one of them is missing." (Isa. 40:26)

So then, I dare us (indeed I dare myself) - don't stop to read the latest magazine or watch the newest episode of that favorite sitcom - if we haven't first taken time to pray and read our Bibles.  Let's strive to put no other thing before Him.

XOXO,
Amberly