Making God in our image

In Genesis we are told that God made man in His own image. That when God put us together all creation would be able to look at us and see Him. That we would reflect God, that we would demonstrate His authority and carry out His will on earth, taking care of His creation and serving Him.
The problem arose when we turned away from God and served ourselves. We used the authority we had been given to meet our own needs and desires, to overcome and abuse nature rather than live in harmony with it. This disharmony brought about disease and death and selfishness. However through it all we have still held a need to acknowledge God, to serve God, to love God, and to live in harmony with Him. The problem is that our selfishness has even encroached on this innate desire, and rather than accepting that we are made in His image, we have desired to make God in our image. We have tried to make a god that meets our needs, a god that serves us, a god that people will look at and see us, a god that carries out our will. This is all back to front and upside down, but it is what we have done throughout the generations. Let me explain.
The Mesopotamians were an aggressive war making empire who had no mercy but destroyed everyone who came up against them. The gods they worshipped were aggressive, merciless gods who were vengeful. The Greeks on the other hand were a much more philosophical empire. The Greeks use to sit around all day and contemplate, make love and discuss, and they believed themselves to be gods in their own right when they achieved new heights. The gods they worshipped were very much local and lived on Mount Olympus overlooking Athens. They were flawed super humans who sat around discussing, making love with each other and the mortal humans, and they interacted with the humans frequently.
The Romans were much more proactive as an Empire and believed themselves to be the master race who would overcome the whole earth. They were aggressive but also artistic, and so their gods were global gods and much more aggressive gods who were on the side of the Roman empire throughout.
SO throughout history we have made gods in OUR image. I remember when I was in my teens in the 80’s and it was the decade of the feminist, and surprise surprise, god was a woman. And we see it continue today, the age of individualism, where we all have our own gods and whatever we believe is true if we believe it. god is no longer an absolute but rather his existence is dependent on our believing in him or her or it, and whatever we believe him/her/it to be is by definition what he/she/it is.
So why do we do this? Well the answer is also in the Bible. Shortly after God states His intention to make us in His image, we see the snake in the garden talking to Eve, and what does he say to tempt her to eat the apple? He says “God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened, and you will be LIKE GOD..” When they built the tower of Babel, their motive was to reach the heavens and make a name for themselves. We have throughout the ages wanted to be gods in our own right and it continues today. We live in a society where it is all about immediate gratification of our desires. We can have what we want, when we want it, fame and celebrity is desired, we can believe what we want, power and influence and money are everything. We are gods!
The problem is that we weren’t created to be gods and to serve our own needs, but rather to serve God and represent Him and so we live in disharmony. God doesn’t serve us, we serve Him. We blame God when it goes wrong because He hasn’t done what we want Him to do, but that is the wrong way round. Things go wrong because we haven’t done what He wants us to do.
The answer is to allow God to make us in His image. To allow God to restore us to what He intended us to be, agents of harmony. We need to sacrifice our gods, our wrong image of God, take ourselves off the throne in our lives and put God on the throne. Make Him God, put Him in charge, serve Him, Love Him, obey Him, allow Him to be God in our lives.