Desperate for the Word

I just finished watching the movie, The Book of Eli with Denzel Washington. This movie has been one of my favorites for many years, although it wasn't until tonight that the Lord imparted some amazing lessons from the movie into my life.

We live in an age where 'Christians' believe they can live out their faith without ever opening the Word of God. I am as guilty as the next person when it comes to not being in the Word like I should be. But more than should be, I want to WANT to be in the Word always. I want to be so hungry and so desperate for the Word of God that days don't pass without ever opening my Bible, but instead minutes pass and I can't wait to open it again.

The movie, The Book of Eli, is set in a post-war world where the Bible was believed to hold such power that those who wanted it for evil and those who sought to protect it were risking their lives to have it, know it, and learn it. They were all desperate for the Word in some sense or another. Eli was sent on a mission from the Lord to get the last remaining copy of the Bible across the country where it would be safe, and reprinted to help start the new civilization. His life consisted of nothing but faith and total surrender in order to complete the task that God had set before Him. And what happens in the end? He dies.

He dies. No glory for Eli. No celebration for the work HE has done. He disappears. His mission was finished. He understood that the bigger picture was not about him at all. He was here for a reason, God gave Him a purpose, and when it was accomplished, he left this world to be with the Creator. When I think back about this concept I think about my own life--and how frustrated I get so often because I don't feel like the Lord has given me some grand "calling". The story of Eli makes me question if my heart is in the right place. If the Lord DID give me some huge important task, would I risk everything I am and everything I have to totally surrender to the call? I would like to think yes....but I don't know if that is true.

There are small areas of my daily life where I fail to surrender to the Lord--so what makes me think I deserve such a huge mission from the Lord? My heart is in that transition of learning 'Yo Meg-it's not about you at all!' And it's not.

What if something happened tomorrow and life as we know it was over. Instead we lived in a post war torn society. There was barely enough food and water to go around, loved ones were lost or dead, and we no longer lived in the society we know and are so familiar with today. What if there were 5 Bibles left on the planet, and 2 were in the hands of people looking to destroy them or use them for evil. Maybe 2 were accessible but in a language that no one could translate. And maybe that last 1, was missing. Somewhere in the world but no one knew where. Would you fight for the Word of God? Would you seek out the evil doers? Would you find a way to translate what seems like the impossible? Or would you set out to find the missing one--only relying on faith and total surrender to the Lord?

How important is the Word of God to you? Right now-as a Christian--do you value God's word like it's meant to be valued? Are you listening for His voice? Learning about His character? If you're not taking advantage of the handful of Bibles I assume are laying around your house and car and church right now....then just imagine for a second what it would be like if you could NEVER open and read a Bible again. Ever.

Would it wreck your world and change your life? Or would things be about the same as they are right....now....

In Him,
Meg