QOTD

Today's QOTD is from the introduction to Dwayne Roberts' upcoming book, One Thing.

"Most everything in the Western world is aimed at arresting your attention. Every advertisement, every piece of entertainment, and every gotta-have-it item has taken aim at the core of who you are: one giant hunger. And they are offering their answer: fascination. In one form or another, each one says, “We know who you are, and we have what you want.” Ironically, they are more honest about our hearts than the church has been.

On one hand, we have hunger. We are driven, we desire, and we want. Beyond the basic needs of sustenance and shelter, this hunger is the undeniably real part of us that makes us human. For some reason we don’t just settle--we want “the finer things in life.” In the same way that any old antelope would feed a cheetah, soybean burgers and water will fill our stomachs. But steak and lobster would be better. I’ve never run across a disgruntled ant that has had enough with foraging and carrying stuff. For us, any job will pay the bills, but wouldn’t that other position be much better? And while a bear gets one new coat a year, we’d like to have a few new outfits each season. It has little to do with snobbery, greed, or gluttony, but with the eternal hunger God has put within us. Every once in a while we certainly get a bit off track with how we allow this hunger to materialize in our life, but that doesn’t mean it is either evil or non-existent. It just means it is misguided and in need of an adjustment.

On the other hand, we have fascination. We are one deep hunger, and the bulk of our time, energy and resources is spent trying to satisfy that hunger with a lasting fascination. If desire is what drives us, fascination is what keeps us. All sorts of futile pleasures besides God are stealing the heart of this generation, which brings me to why I wrote this book.

After talking with so many inside and outside of the Church, I can identify a pattern starting to emerge. It seems that both the saved and unsaved are crying out for truth, for reality, for the ability to know and feel what is truly eternal. They want something of eternity to fascinate them. Whether or not they will say it this way, they want God.

Through the centuries, the saints of old have been satisfied by God. But more than that, they have been completely won over to the point of leaving everything else in order to have Him as their reward, as their onething. At this time in history, I want to invite you into the same journey. Wherever you are in life, don’t cheat yourself—your calling is to be fascinated by God Himself. Not just facts and trivia about Him, not a ten-step program, not the coolest way to do worship or church…God Himself. Anything less is misguided foraging and second-rate soybean burgers.

Spiritual hunger is at an all-time high. Unlike any other time in history, this young adult generation is universally hungry for spiritual enlightenment. It’s evident from the sheer numbers. Right now, Islam is the fastest growing religion in America. The kicker is that many of the converts at one point pursued Jesus. This is not some silly competition to get bigger numbers; it is an alarming reality: in the process of pursuing God, while they were in Church, these people have lost their way. This is a horrifying thought. My fear is that they have gotten a glimpse of God and understood salvation, but the Church fed them shallow programs intended to keep them in the pews, instead of intending to keep them in love by helping them learn how to touch God Himself.

Spiritual hunger isn’t the only thing measuring off the charts. Right now, discontentment and disillusionment within the church is astronomical. According to the Barna Research Group (www.barna.org), the percentage of people who are believers but are not attending church is the highest it has ever been, especially in the twenty-five and younger crowd. Young adults are losing hope in the church and in what they are hearing from that mute and powerless structure, even though the options as far as what church to join are endless: the one with the plasma screen or the one that meets in the local bar, the mega-church or the “our four and no more”, the home group or the sub-culture ministry. I am not calling you to do church any particular way, I am inviting you to experience Jesus in the midst of church today. I think that church is vital to spiritual health, but in the midst of all our doing and going, throughout all the busyness of life, there is still only one thing necessary: experiencing the joys of touching Jesus.

There is one thing necessary. There is one thing fascinating. Your hunger is real; now let your fascination be eternal."