In a commencement speech at Kenyon College, David Foster Wallace said the following:
“There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. If you worship money and things, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.”
Unfortunately, whatever it was that Wallace chose to worship left him feeling conflicted and unfulfilled because he later chose to end his own life at the age of 46. He saw the futility of secular, materialist answers to life’s biggest questions and that discouraged him. Seeking life and fulfillment where there is only death and disappointment IS fruitless and futile.
As a believer, I know that the only source of life and fulfillment comes in my relationship with my Savior… Someone who loved me so much that he would be pierced for my rebellion, crushed for my sins, beaten so I could be whole, and whipped so I could be healed. (Isaiah 53:5) Someone who delights in me (2 Samuel 22:20)
I refuse to give my life to pointless human ambitions and attempts to satisfy primal desires. I refuse to unintentionally worship created things, even the majestic and beautiful, like the sunrise posted above, for they are only a dim reflection of the glory of the Creator. What do you worship?