Our Desperate Need for God

"For in him we live, and move, and have our being."

 

These are the words of Paul the apostle, speaking to the men of Athens who were quite religious, as they had objects of worship to many different gods. However, it appears that they were aware that they were still missing something on some level even though they could never quite find out what exactly it was. Paul is explaining to them that what they are missing is that the one God who created the world is the same God who gives men everything they have and is the One who is "not far from any of them." Today I want to look at the implications of that statement because if Paul is correct, it means that God is so much more then what people often think of him. It means that he is more than a being who sits back and watches his creation. It means that he is more than some impersonal force that we must appease to secure our future well being. It means that he is much closer than we might have ever imagined, yea even so much closer than we would dare to think. Because if it is true that we live, move, and exist in Him then it is also true that we need him, oh so desperately need him, even "need him as our body never needed food or air, need him as our soul never hungered after joy, or peace, or pleasure." Need him so desperately that it might just terrify us to see the extent of it.

 

But if that is true, then why don't we feel it? Why do so many of us seem to get along "just fine" without him? I will submit to you that we don't feel it because we have lost our sensitivity to it. We have turned to other things that seem to satisfy our needs, that make us feel safe and secure, that make us feel adequate in ourselves. I am reminded of the story of Dorian Gray. A man who hid his soul in a picture in the attic. A man who appeared perfect, while inwardly he was rotting away. A man who could refrain from facing his true condition by never venturing into the recesses of his house. A man who could be oblivious to his deepest needs because they were buried from his sight.

 

In a way, we can choose to do the same. We can bury our need for God deep within the recesses of our being. We can focus on the superficial aspects of life. We can ignore the need for long enough to come to the conclusion that we don't even have it. But if Paul is correct then that need is there. A need that is not only relegated to some future event but a need that is with us at every moment. A need that supersedes our need for food, for air; a need that consists in existence itself. A need that Jesus Christ came to reveal and lives forever to satisfy. I will submit to you that our purpose is to recognize this need, even to come to know and experience this need - to learn more and more just how desperately we need our God. I would say that this is a taste of what Jesus meant when he said that the greatest commandment is to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength."