Would you consider yourself desperate for God? Does He consume your thoughts and days? There is no shortage of distractions vying for your attention. We live in a busy, chaotic world designed to fracture our attention and keep us from meaningful conversations and relationships. That’s not the way God intended it to be. In the beginning, there was only God and man (and soon, woman). They walked together every evening, just enjoying each other’s presence.
Nothing was pulling at their attention. They were content to just be with one another. Adam was in the presence of God and He recognized the privilege of conversing with His Creator. He spent his days marveling at all God had created. I imagine he was in a constant state of worship. How could you not be as you worked and played in the middle of paradise?
It’s a far cry from the world we’ve inherited from our ancestors, and we’re only making it worse for those who will come after us. Now we spend our days staring at one screen or another. I dare say there are many (if not most) who spend more time looking at a screen than in the eyes of a fellow human each day. Instead of the lilting song of birds or the buzzing of insects, cable and internet news provide the soundtrack of our lives now. No longer do we spend hours in the presence of God, but we have no problem finding time to spend hours entertaining ourselves with the things of this world.
It is the rare Christian who has not succumbed to being of the world as opposed to just being in it. It is rarer still to find a Christ-follower who is honest about this. None of us wants to be carnal. We confess Jesus as Lord and we mean it. The trouble is we don’t live like it. Our lives are so similar to those who don’t know God that you’d be hard-pressed to tell a Jesus follower from an atheist. We aren’t desperate for God. We’re desperate for acceptance, comfort, and security.
If we were desperate for God, we’d turn off our televisions and sell off the garbage we’ve acquired trying to fill an internal emptiness that only God can heal. Psalm 73:25-26 says, “Who do I have in heaven but You? And I desire nothing on earth but You. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, my portion forever.” That’s the attitude we need. God is everything. There is nothing else.
When we get to the point when we are so consumed with Jesus that we can think of nothing else, we are coming to the right place in our hearts. He is our portion. This means we don’t need entertainment. We don’t have to worry about what we will eat, drink, or wear (Matthew 6:31-33). Our whole lives must be consumed with Jesus. We must make every decision questioning which choice would be most pleasing to our Lord. Everything we see, listen to, and do must be done to glorify Christ. Are you desperate enough for Him to live like that? This is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.