It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.
—Psalm 118:8–9
The temptation to create our own gods is almost irresistible. And once we have landed on the god of our choice, we move immediately to worship, casting aside reason and experience in our rush to laud the object of our desire. The object could be anything: a baseball team or a woman. It could be a Hollywood star or a politician. We seem to need to manufacture something or someone who is greater than we are, and so we put our trust in man and in princes even though the evidence would suggest that neither men nor princes are very trustworthy.
The tendency to worship mortals is like accepting the counterfeit for the original. The author of Hebrews addresses this human foible when he says that what we have here is “a copy and shadow of what is in heaven” (Hebrews 8:5). Jesus’ claim is that He is the original and not a mere copy. While the world is always attempting to discredit and downgrade Him, Jesus keeps reminding us that He is the authentic one who can always be counted on.
Jesus said that others would come in His name (Matthew 24:5) and “many false prophets will appear and deceive many people” (Matthew 24:11), and all this has come true, especially in our own time; but Jesus continues to shine through all the darkness and confusion as the One, the only one we can trust.
—Eric Kampmann, Signposts