Worship is like Gravity.

A meteorite tumbles aimlessly through space. It is not buoyed by any winds, but it may bounce off of some of its counterparts, thus changing its direction. It tumbles with no plan, no target, no goal. Then, one day, there is a tug. A pull. The meteorite, if it were capable of having thoughts, might think a subtle shift had occured, as if it was being drawn toward something. If it could see, it would see a large mass, maybe a star or a planet or a moon. This is what draws it in. It had approached this behemoth mass and been caught, weakly at first but with increasing strength, in the gravity of the celestial body. If the force is strong enough, this little meteorite will tumble into the bigger mass and be destroyed, consumed by the object it was drawn to.

This is worship.

We are a meteorite, tumbling through life without aim or goal, until we encounter a mass large enough to have its own gravity. This mass may be a person, an object, an idea, a job, even a deity. Whatever it is, it pulls us in. We become caught up in it, and if we allow ourselves, we will be consumed by it.

We are creatures of worship. Watch teenage guys as a pretty girl walks by. Watch a group of people when a sleek Ferrari blurs past them. Notice how people migrant to mountains and beaches just to soak them up. These are all forms of worship. Giving attention, even devotion to. These people or things draw us into their gravity, sometimes for a moment, sometimes for a lifetime. Think about when you first fell in love: it was as if you were not in control, as if you were falling into that person and you couldn't (or didn't want) to stop.

We worship our favorite teams when we adorn ourselves in their colors and chant for them to win. We give money to buy their liscensed gear so we can feel a part of them. We defend them and fight for their honor. We give a great deal of our time to watching them do their thing.

We worship our future when we allow ourselves to be consumed in the pursuit of our dreams. We spend our waking hours studying, thinking, planning, working to secure this vision. We lose closeness with friends and family- just for the time being, we tell ourselves- so we can achieve... something.

We worship celebrity when we spend thousands to buy their stuff. We wait anxiously for the latest gossip about Lindsey, Paris or Kanye. We dress like them, talk like them, and as much as possible on our limited budgets, we live like them.

All of these things are forms of worship. We want something to give ourselves to, to lose ourselves in. We want to be a part of something bigger than just us. That 'Bigger' can be a person, an vision, a group...or it can be an ideal.

Ideals are dangerous things to worship. Be they political, religious, or anything else, these are things that can give us power, and once we have tasted power, it is power we worship. Look at leaders who had great ideals, leaders who have fallen. Pastors in affairs, Politicians in corruption, Business People in scandals. They got power and they worshipped it, they worshiped themselves. They became the biggest mass around, they were the thing that had gravity. People were drawn to them, people wanted to be with them and near them and like them. The became little gods in little worlds.

But there is always something bigger.

Many of us are the center of our universe, the center of gravity for our world. Then one day, we feel a tug, a pull a subtle shift in direction. We have come into a new gravity, a new Alpha Mass is around. God enters our lives, and we feel His pull. We can struggle and fight, or we can let Him draw us near. We can choose to approach God- and in doing so, the other gravities in our life lose their hold. They aren't as all consuming or as important as we thought. Our celebrity worship loses its hold, followed by our worship of our future, and our worship of stuff and of people. The last to go is our pride, our worship of self.

As we crash into God, as we are destroyed- our old life flaming out due to the friction of drawing so close to God- we become part of His body. We no longer live, it is Christ in us. We lose ourselves completely in Him. We realize He is what matters, He is our Alpha Mass, our Sun. He is the center of our universe.

This is worship.