thoughts on "Something Needs to Change"

Most people I know don’t like change—unless it only affects someone else, and sometimes not even then.  And then there are the people who embrace change, willingly embrace it, and sometimes even seek it out. I sometimes resist change, even when I know it will be good for me, but as I read through David Platt’s latest book, Something Needs to Change: A Call to Make Your Life Count in a World of Urgent Need, (Multnomah, 2019) it dawned on me that I’ve also fallen into the trap of resisting change even when it means that the resistance is nothing more than disobedience to God’s will and call on my life. 

This book is one of the best I have read on how we should respond to God’s call on the lives of all Christians. I’ve traveled in the part of the world that Platt writes about. I’ve seen some of what are probably some the worst slums in the world, and I’ve seen the people who live in abject spiritual and physical poverty. I’ve met people who have no hope other than perhaps finding a few scraps of food so their kids don’t have to go bed hungry—again.

               I used to think that sending an occasional check to some missions agency, or to support a missionary in another part of the world was doing all that I needed to do to fulfill my part of the Great Commission. But several mission trips later, I realized, as Platt so eloquently points out, that sometimes we need to come face to face with the extreme needs in the world before we are willing to fall on our face before God, and with tears in our eyes beg Him to tell us what He would have us do to share His love with His children.   We have to see what others lack before we realize how much we have. And when we see how people get by with so little, it should force us to think about how richly we have been blessed, and how those great blessing should cause us to be filled with gratitude.

            Current estimates are that there are still 7000 unreached people groups left in the world, and unless the church steps up and shoulders the responsibility for fulfilling the great commission, that number is unlikely to grow smaller anytime in the near future. It seems pretty obvious to me that not everyone is physically capable of scaling Himalayan mountain peaks, but there are other places less physically challenging that have the same needs. At some point more of us need to cry out, as Isaiah did, “here I am, Lord, send me!” 

           Platt’s passion was obvious in this book, I just wish that I had been able to feel that same passion through the written words, as I have felt when working with new Christians whose previous world view left them basically with no hope, and eternally separated from God.  I particularly liked how he tied his daily devotional readings during this journey into the text. My renewed prayer after reading this book (in one evening) was the following” Lord, let my heart be broken by the things that break your heart; and let me love your people like you love them.

          As a member of the publisher’s bloggers’ program, I received an Advance Readers Copy of this book so that I could provide an honest review. I was not required to write a positive review.

         To give anything less than a 5/5 would be a great disservice to the multitudes of people who will be blessed by reading this book.