Baals of today

These verses from the 1sts reading of the 12th Sun. after Pentecost stood out to me:
Jeremiah 23:26-27 How long? Will the hearts of the prophets ever turn back--those who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart? They plan to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, just as their ancestors forgot my name for Baal.

This summer I've been reading 'historical fiction' about the birth of the modern state of Israel. My interest in this topic was kindled by the BBC story of the 40th anniversary of the 6-Day War. I read "The Haj" by Leon Uris, then "The Hope" by Herman Wouk. I then began "The Source" by James Michener. This last novel is the longest of the 3 and my progress through it has been impeded by our move from PA to IL, but I continue to chip away at it. Unlike the first 2, "The Source" spans the entire breadth of history, telling the story of a plot of land in northern Palestine, and beginning prior to the birth of Abraham.
One of the contributions Michener has made to my personal education on the topic, has been an increased awareness and understanding of the ongoing temptation to fall into Baal worship, and more frequently, the syncretistic practice of combining Baal worship with Yahweh worship.
Michener's explanation boils down to a matter of 'felt need.' As the Hebrews were nomadic shepherds in the wilderness, a "big god" Yahweh made sense to them. They were never in one place, so the God who's everywhere seemed like a logical God to worship. But once they settled and became farmers, the big everywhere God seemed too distant to care about whether or not their little plots of land grew crops, or got the right amount of rainfall, etc. For these ordinary mundane tasks, they turned to the Baals of the land (as informed by local Canaanite custom).
These temptations often seem quaintly removed from our experience and faith-life, until we put our own practices under the microscope. True, few if any of us have a little deity cove in our homes where we keep our Baal & Ashtoreth idols......but how often do we--like the ancient Hebrews--begin to think that Yahweh is the "big god" who's too far away to see or care about our problems? During these times, what are the "Baals of today?" In other words, what's our first line of defense that we appeal to for the mundane/ordinary troubles of life? For some it's perhaps our horoscope, or the advice/counsel of our network of friends', but at the core of our being, I'd bet it's the intrinsic individualistic faith we have in OURSELVES--our luck; our ability to problem-solve; our resiliance; our resourcefulness; our yankee ingenuity; our work-ethic; our ability to grab our bootstraps & PULL. In short, I would contend that we, at times, become OUR OWN BAAL.
The challenge of faith, of course, is to see that Yahweh is the God who's near. The correct answer to Jer 23:23 "Am I a God near by, says the LORD, and not a God far off?" is YES. That's the whole point of the Incarnation. He's SO NEAR, that he became one of us. And even though we live in the post-ascension days, he continues nearby through his Word, the blessed sacraments, and the ministry of His Church. And a relationship with this nearby God not only *can* be our first line of defense through the course of life, in *reality* He's our only sure defense.