American Amnesia

We are a people who have amnesia toward God. He is the end and goal of the entire universe. How can it be that he is so absent from our lives? The answer is of course, sin. But we don't call it that. Murder is sin. But forgetting God?...

American commercialism emphasizes the enhancement of our enjoyment of God's gifts - "Indulge your senses and satisfy your cravings; though it cost all you have, get comfort!" Advertisements don't call their goods God's gifts. He is simply ignored, and we are quickly and quietly led to completely forget Him, though he is the Giver. This is so wrong.

This departure from the divine is extremely subtle. To the Christian, the silence toward God ought to sound louder than every perky voice and trite tune that surrounds and fruitlessly endeavors to fill that silent space. But more often we are drawn by American commercialism into a world filled with pleasant things we don't possess and health we don't have (unless we would use that brand of laxative...) namely we are presented with a heaven on earth without God! In such a God-less paradise may we ever hear the hollow, howling void that whispers "hell."

In television programs and advertisements about healthy, care-free, luxurious, comfortable lives, may we ever see what lies beyond them - namely eternity - and remember. Remember eternity. Remember God. Television causes you to forget what is important.

Therefore, let us turn from the hollow world, choosing not to fill our God-given minds with the God-less American dream. In practical English: Turn of the television, get your Bible and start praying that God would make you a person who loves Him and lives for eternity.

Let us then, turning from the world, turn to our Lord Jesus who is himself heaven on earth, even in impoverishment. He is in a cold and lonely house our dearest friend; in crawling, crowded tenements our joy and peace. His love is better than life! Let us not love this world and forget God, but let us hate our lives in this world that we may keep them for eternal life!