I am just starting to understand a lot of things about the people who inspire me.
The reason I've had to ponder on this is because I recently met a woman who has inspired me for years. I painted her portrait last summer (I work from photographs so she only saw the result when she received the print I sent to her), and we happened to talk a bit about it. At some point she exclaimed: "I was thinking: 'Why did she paint me? Why?'" And I could tell she was both puzzled and moved by it. I was also moved to see her reaction and never found the words to explain it to her. I proceeded to write her a letter afterwards where I tried my best to explain.

Thanks to C. S. Lewis and his autobiography Surprised by Joy I am starting to see how I've created an ideal parallel world within myself because of how faulty the actual world is. As a Christian, I understand this world as a "fallen world." The actual and the imaginary ideal world coexist in my life, but sometimes, a bridge is created when inspiration strikes: an element of the physical world is revealing itself as ideal. Hope fills me and makes me think the real world isn't so hostile after all. Imagine the bliss. Since this bridge is usually created by a human being, I can become very idolatrous of that person at times.
As a Christian, I have struggled so about this! Because my conscience was step dancing around like crazy, but also because the relationships created with these people can easily become unhealthy and even disastrous.

I also eventually come to find faults in the people I first thought ideal and God always opens my eyes to his grace through this: God loves us even as sinners. Through this he's taught me to love the Bridge people as they are, and see them as my fellow human beings, not like some gods walking on the face of the earth.

I read The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis, and thought this passage particularly relevant in regards to this:

We were made for God. Only by being a manifestation of his beauty, loving-kindness, wisdom or goodness, has any earthly Beloved excited our love. It is not that we have loved them too much, but that we did not quite understand what we were loving. It is not that we shall be asked to turn from them, so dearly familiar, to a Stranger. When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it. He has been a party to, has made, sustained and moved moment by moment within, all our earthly experiences of innocent love. All that was true love in them was, even on earth, far more His than ours, and ours only because His. In Heaven there will be no anguish an no duty of turning away from our earthly Beloveds. First, because we shall have turned already; from the rivulets to the Fountain, from the creatures He made lovable to Love Himself. But secondly, because we shall find them all in Him. By loving Him more than them we shall love them more than we now do. (C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves- Charity)

Yes, it is God's face I am seeking in these people, and I must learn to worship him in spirit and in truth. I so wish I could "feel" love for God. Not just in faith and obedience, but with my feelings as well, just like I love the people who inspire me. How easy it is to love when you can see a face. Will I have to wait to see God's face to feel real love for him?
I also realize I have to accept the actual world as it is and face it armed with the grace of God and the shield of faith.