Spiritual Consumerism

I had the incredible privilege of spending some time talking with Sara Groves before she spoke for Chick Night at our church, River Valley Church, on Sunday evening. We got to talking about Africa and mission trips and how when you go to Africa it puts life into a different perspective. When you see children fighting over an empty water bottle, it changes you. As we were talking, Sara mentioned “spiritual consumerism.” Yes, we have a lot of “stuff” in America, but we also have the incredible privilege of being able to openly read our Bibles, attend church, go to conferences, etc. and what do we do with that? What do we do with all we are able to learn about God? Do we share it, or keep it to ourselves?

One other thing that Sara shared while she was speaking was how people look at evil (or bad things happening to good people) and say, “where is God in all of this?” Wow, I’ve thought that myself. She quoted someone else’s response to this question, and I wish I could tell you who, but the response was this, “Instead of asking where is God, our real question should be, where are God’s people?” A powerful question!