When I think about believers in places like Syria and Iraq, bombed out of their houses, persecuted for their faith, risking everything to meet together and read God's Word or study, that is what I tend to think about when I think of people who are desperate for God's Word. They cling to it because of the desolation of their world and their surroundings. If I am honest, at times I think it might be good for us in the West to experience this type of life if for no other reason that to make us hungry, desperate, for God's Word again. It is far to easy in this Western Christianity, to be so overwhelmed by 'things', by information, by technology, by busyness, by the pursuit of pleasure and wealth to find time for God, let alone be desperate for Him.
But, what if we in Western Christianity are living in our own desolation and are just to blind to see it?
Here is what challenged me at church today: what if living in a culture that is morally bankrupt and drifting further and further from God, living in a culture that absolutely values achievement and wealth as the definition of success, is a desolation as dangerous as that of believers living in places like Syria and Iraq? What if their desolation forces them to seek God, while ours blinds us from our need for God? What if I am so overwhelmed by the trappings and gadgets and technology and pleasures of this world that I unable to be, nor do I care to be, overwhelmed by God?
