Thou shalt have no other gods before me. -Exodus 20:3
It would be difficult, don't you agree, to look at the Ten Commandments honestly and claim any degree of success in keeping them.
I mean that Sabbath one is pretty tough sometimes, right?
As for loving my neighbor as myself (Jesus called that the second one); I mean "come on!"
But how about the first one? Have you ever broken that commandment?
Wow. Hardly likely, you might say. God is God, after all, and the idea of there being some other god to put in front of Him seems ridiculous.
But I have this tendency to be a lawbreaker, you see. So the question is: where have I failed? Honesty requires that I look into this question and, honestly, it has been a puzzler.
Then it occurred to me: I have been inconvenienced.
When was the last time you grumbled under your breath? Or even cursed out loud?
Was it when some foolish person pulled out in front of you? When you spilled grease on the stove? How about when a family member misplaced the TV remote?
Here is our new god, America: its name is Convenience.
It's not really some form of organized religion. We pretty much roll our own when it comes to how we worship it.
That's probably what makes it so hard to recognize. The serpent, you see, is more subtle than all the other beasts of the field so that it seems perfectly normal to feel put out and put-upon when we encounter the frustrations of this day-to-day life.
I don't need this kind of crap, do you?
Hmm.
You know, there appears to be a god behind this god, breathing life into it.
It is me.
Have mercy, O Lord!
