2001: A Spiritual Odyssey
by Rusty Miller
Many years ago, as schoolchildren, we discussed the year 2001 as something so far away as to be unfathomable. We would all have flying cars, of course, and everyone would be able to get their daily "roast beef and potatoes" in a tiny pill. Even Arthur C. Clarke, a novelist, imagined a world where a computer would have its own agenda, plotting against humans to accomplish its goals in his story, "2001: A Space Odyssey."
The American Heritage Dictionary defines "odyssey" as: "an intellectual or spiritual quest." As we enter the year 2001, we find it in many ways to be very similar to those days when we were schoolchildren. Roast beef and potatoes are still served the traditional way, and cars rarely fly unless a teenager is behind the wheel. To be sure, much about our world has changed, but one thing has decidedly remained the same: man's need for God, and thus to embark on a "spiritual quest."
We are not concerned here with some kind of mystical, feel-good, ooey-gooey kind of search for a god who is merely a poorly disguised version of ourselves. What we search for, and what we are calling others to search for, is the God. The God who created and sustains this world. The God who gives us life. The God who calls us to be better people than what we have been. The God of the Bible.
It should come as no surprise then, that our search begins and ends with His holy word. We do not ask that men blindly follow the Bible, but that they search its words and see the proofs that this is truly the word of the one true God. Having determined that, we ask that men study it to see how God would have us live. And finally, we ask that men trust in God, leaning on Him for strength to be what He wants us to be..
The year 2001 can be the one in which you strengthen your resolve to serve Christ. It can be the one in which you turn your family around. It can be the year in which you determine to lead others to Christ.
Unless the Lord returns this year, someone will write a page at the beginning of next year discussing the need to focus on Jesus as we enter a new year. What will the journey of 2001 have brought you? Will you still be hanging on to the same old problems, trying to straighten out what has gone wrong in your life? Or will 2001 be the year which you can look back on as the point where you turned a corner, strengthening your spirituality and better serving your God?
Join us on this spiritual odyssey and see if your life is not made better in the coming year by your determination to serve Him better. Let this journey be one which brings you the joy which is found in Him, and the peace which comes from serving Him.