Hero Worship

We all have people that inspire us. In many cases, the people that inspire us are good people that have overcome odds and achieved their goals. There are also those people that inspire us that are not who they really are. We are actually inspired by a carefully preserved image of that person but not the actual person themselves. It is often too late that we discover that supermodel was using heroin or that politician was seeing a mistress or that preacher was embezzling funds from the church and once discovered heads off to Mexico with his secretary. These stories are common.

This is the peril of looking at people to be our heroes -- they can be genuine but many times they are not what they say they are -- they wear masks or they have some hidden agenda of their own that is selfish. People are flawed, petty and stupid at times.

That does not mean we should not have heroes, but it does mean that we need to be ready to remember they are human. When our admiration for the person exceeds our commitment to our own principles we are on dangerous ground. It can also be helpful to pick a hero that is not flawed and there is only one I know of --Jesus Christ.

Jesus has always been my hero precisly becasue he was both God and man -- sinless and yet real. This is hero worship in truth.