“He burns half of it in the fire; with this half he eats meat...he even warms himself...and the rest of it he makes into a god, his carved image. He falls down before it and worships it; prays to it and says, ‘Deliver me, for you are my God.”  Is.44:16, 17

Man is a strange creature indeed. First of all, we are the only beings on the face of the earth who worship. No animal has a God-ward inclination or any propensity for prayer. We are also the only creatures who manufacture our own gods. And then bow down to the very god we created and ask it to deliver us. Go figure.

Someone once quipped, “In the beginning God created man, and man has been returning the favor ever since.” I like that. In reality that is exactly what idolatry is – reverse creationism. Man making God in his image according to his likeness. It is also what I like to refer to it as “spiritual schizophrenia”. Probably nowhere is that seen more vividly than Is.44:9-20, a tremendous parody on the whole enterprise of idol manufacturing.

Bottom line is this. We are born into this world with unmanageable needs. In other words we yearn for love, significance, safety, respect, etc. in profoundly intense ways. These needs are so powerful that we can’t wish them away, pretend them away, numb them away, or deny them away. So we turn to God to meet these needs. But we want a manageable God to meet those needs. A God we can keep under wraps, keep in reserve, keep safely tucked away for just the right moment or need. We want a manageable God to take care of our unmanageable needs. We want part of God to keep us warm (44:16), part of God to cook our dinner (44:16), and the remaining part of God to deliver us from our troubles (44:16). If that is not spiritual schizophrenia, I don’t know what is.

In actuality what we want is not a God but a servant. A servant big enough to deliver us but submissive enough to never threaten our lifestyle. But such a Being simply does not exist (except in the health and wealth gospel). Only an unmanageable God is big enough to satisfy our unmanageable needs. And worthy enough to deserve our unrestrained, white-hot adoration. And good enough to entrust the entirety of our being to. Only one such God exists. His name is Jesus.