While writing a post on being merciful this week, a poem came to mind I’d heard many years ago. I first heard it quoted by Charles Swindoll in a sermon. I don’t remember things very well. Yet, these words have stuck in my mind for years. There must be a reason. Perhaps it’s because it disturbingly describes my real attitude towards God. It dissects the reality of my superficial commitment to God.   

Three Dollars Worth of God

I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.
Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep,
but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk
or a snooze in the sunshine.
I don’t want enough of God to make me love a black man
or pick beets with a migrant.
I want ecstasy, not transformation.
I want warmth of the womb, not a new birth.
I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack.
I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.

— Wilbur Rees 

I am afraid this describes most of the so-called Christians that surround me.

• Guys who give more of their heart to the Alabama Crimson Tide than to their prayer life.
• Women who commit themselves daily to hours of physical exercise, eating right, dressing well, and looking good yet neglect the inner beauty of their heart.
• Men who sell their souls to their vocation for the sake of success, power, or wealth.
• Couples who are more devoted to their status in the community than their relationship with God.
• Millennials who don’t want God messing with their immoral behavior.
• Elderly who are so set in their ways that they always think they’re right even if God is telling them otherwise.
• The Christian who loves everybody but dismisses the guy with the sign on the corner or is hostile to those who disagree.

But it’s easy to “bust the chops” of Christians in general. What about you in particular? Does this poem describe you?

Do you want a comfortable relationship with God hoping He won’t invade the space of your kitchen, office, den, or bedroom?

Are you about God making you feel good but not about God making you discipline yourself to godliness?

Do you think the Christian life is a broad way of ease and comfort or a narrow way of suffering and effort?

Do you only hope for a cozy, convenient God or are you OK with an irritating, provoking God?

You and I want to make God in our own image. So, I hope you are discomforted a bit by this post. Not because you aren’t a really good person but because you may be complacent in your Christianity.

Down deep you know you need more than $3 worth of God.

How does this poem strike you? Share below. Share with others. 

Dr. K