Just a quote…

“Personally, I believe a lot of the de facto Atheism that we see in American’s everyday lives, including evangelical christian’s lives, arises from this consumption mentality. We anesthetize ourselves by our consuming, especially the consuming quest for comfort. So just when we’ve been jarred into seeing reality for what it is and seeing the falsity of our prior frivolous existence…we are told to scramble back into normality and consumerism.”
-From the book Common Grounds, by Ben Young & Glenn Lucke

This quote really hit me when I read it. It’s so true and I know it by seeing it in my own life. When we are brought to the pivotal breaking point of this world’s emptiness and complete surrender to God, all it takes is a little distraction and we’ll be okay again…until our next breaking point. Movies, music, food, technology, and even relationships—we approach them all with the attitude of a consumer. Are we really any different than a drug addict? Are we any better, except the fact that we allow our remedy to vary with each craving? How amazing (in a horrific way) that we take the very gifts and world God gave us, and use them to feed our independence from Him.

That gives me insight into a life apart from God…how a non-christian copes with life moment by moment, distraction by distraction. But life is a not a culmination of distractions, and how can we as christians continually find ourselves resorting to a life as such? I know how heart-broken and empty I’ve felt in the moments I’ve been fortunate enough to catch myself living that way. How foolish it is to think that the quelling of each subsequent desire that arises within is a sufficient substitute for the eternal void and inescapable hunger for finding rest in the God of our salvation.