I’ve done it again.  Fallen into the world of…

“Hey, I know this person.  I got an email from her.  I got a free CD from these people.  I work with this guy.  I’m gonna interview her.”

Why, why, why, why, why, why, W-H-Y do I care so much about that?

Why is it that I (and many of you…probably all of you) get so excited about knowing certain people.  Why does fame–whether genuine or impressed upon–make us think highly of other people?

That is a dirty trick that Satan uses.  Look at the entertainment news industry.  People spend hours of their lives reporting on which star went to which restaurant to get drunk and then wreck their car.

It’s so interesting to me how Satan makes the genuine, pure desire of wanting to know people turn perverted.  God created us to love other people.  He created us with this desperate need for community, acceptance and relationship.

It’s totally fine to want to know other people.  Then Satan came along and turned that desire into a sick and twisted relentless pursuit of gossip-driven knowledge that is known as the secular entertainment news industry.

I try not to watch things like Entertainment Weekly.  Although, I have caught myself reading tabloid headlines just to look at their ridiculousness.  And, I do read the entertainment headlines on MSN.com, though I think I should stop that.  

I just get excited to get to know people.  I love finding stuff out about the people around me.  I like knowing how people work and the reasons why they do what they do.  So, when I get to know somebody a little better I get really excited at my deeper level of relationship with them.

So, naturally, I want to know everybody at every level.  I wanna know my neighbor just as much as I want to know “famous people.”  Although, when people develop a desire to know someone “famous,” things change.  Though I may genuinely want to have a relationship with some musician (for example), it could be taken as obsessive if I pursue it too much.  Why can’t I know somebody perceived as famous?  What’s the deal with that?

Sure, a lot of it is proximity.  I know of that person because they receive a lot of publication and attention.  If they weren’t well known and lived on the other side of the country, then I probably wouldn’t have know of them in the first place.

So maybe the distance creates the potential for perceived creepiness.

All theories aside, I love knowing people.  I wish that my genuine and pure desire for that was recognized, received and reciprocated. 

Another pivot of frustration for me is that I get so excited about knowing people but I don’t usually get so excited about knowing God.  He is the Creator of the universe.  He’s the man that knit me together in my mother’s womb.  He makes the sun rise and set.  He raises the dead.  He makes the world spin exactly as it should.  He will be the one to put the final, devastating blow on Satan. 

Yet, I don’t get all thrilled about Him like I should.  Sure, I love Him.  But I don’t go around every day telling everyone that I know Him.  I don’t usually speak of His greatness either. 

I think I’ve fallen into conforming to the world’s trend of promoting people rather than promoting the Creator.  I get more excited about knowing a variety of people, rather than the notoriety of the Creator.

*sigh*

As I type this, I’m reminded of Romans 12: 2.  Of course I am.  That verse is all over my life.  It tells me not to conform to the world, but to renew my mind.

I’m not renewing my mind enough.  If I don’t fill my mind with God’s Word and the stories of His majesty, then that leaves room for the world to fill my mind with hero worship and idolotry.

The answer is simple: Get more in the Word.

*sigh*

Sorry, God.  I’m missing out on so much of the true Famous One.