hero worship

i've always been a little prone to hero worship.
i grew up the youngest of three girls - i was born with average smarts to two really brilliant parents.
There was always so much to admire - so much to aspire to - so many beautiful qualities in so many available heroes!
This morning, in church... i was remembering the little girl i was. i had poker straight pale blond hair - cut blunt for most of my childhood. i had enormous glasses and a gap between my front teeth that my mom told me looked glamorous.
Our pastor was talking about how faith is such a necessary part of the Christian walk... He described faith as "choosing the eternal over the temporal..."
And i thought of that little girl - worshipping the temporal, the human, the frail and the sinful. And i wanted to whisper in her ears; "Just a little higher... fix your eyes a little higher up, farther in... The eternal is there.  HE'S the one worthy of your hero worship, HE'S the never-failing, HE'S the consistent, HE'S the one who sees your soul and knows your very being. HE'S the One whose love is real and whose promises never fail."
And i think too, of my own blondie girls and boys - looking to their mama and papa and siblings and maybe finding a hero - an imperfect, fallible hero who instead of absorbing that praise, wants to reflect Him and point continually to the only One worthy...
God, give us the faith to choose the eternal over the temporal! 
And it's not that there aren't qualities in humanity that aren't admirable - it's not that these qualities don't point us to our Father, who bestowed them as gifts on the broken human vessels who bear them... but worshipping the temporal will only bring you pain. Thinking that other human beings are capable of flawless agape love will devastate you when you see that it's not true - that they lie, their promises get broken, their words are true sometimes - and at other times they're empty and false, so it's like you're walking along one of those wooden bridges in movies with half the boards missing. 
And i smiled at God as we talked during the service and i asked Him, "So, what's the point then? i know that relationships are important, *people* are important... How do i reconcile that knowledge with my desire to just give up on all humanity - to shut my eyes and my heart to everyone around me and to only love You?"
And i see myself clinging to my Saviour... starting with just the tiniest threads that i know to be true - and in faith, building from there.  i see myself opening up again, trying again, failing again - because in this life we'll have trouble, and being a believer is a life of sacrifice. i see myself believing with faith that Truth will prove to be better - the the eternal can be chosen over the temporal and that my Papa will continue to grow me.