Last night while doing lunges in the weight room, I noticed Country Music Awards on television. I am no more a fan of country music than my eight year old son gets excited about opera. But as various country singers jingled to the stage and sang their twang and people screamed and cheered I considered how these "stars" have to eat or they will die, use the restroom, get bad breath, emit horrible odors from various orifices, brush their teeth, and inhale oxygen, just like all the people in the audience.

And what set them apart was they could twang (sorry, country singers) and voice scoop and make some pretty cool guitar rhythm with heart-moving lyrics. 

But did talent actually set them apart from their adorers? How many people in that audience also had talents, like mathematical skills that would raise the eyebrows of Einstein, inventions that some day will materialize into millions, musical talents that could land them in the New York Philharmonic, or even talents that will never gain a crowd of more than ten people, but still great talents nonetheless? 

And then it hit me. It was not so much talents that these people were shouting and whirling about, but their innate desire to worship something. 

Concerts are fine, music is great, and country music is bearable. But we cannot escape the fact that all of us long to worship, lift up, give praise to something else and lift it higher than us—even if the excuse is as simple as a talent or a skill. We all want some kind of hero to talk about.

What if they encountered that which they were designed to worship? What if they stumbled upon Jesus Himself? What if you were to tell them about your hero?

"Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you..." (Acts 17:23).