Last updated on May 28th, 2023 at 04:43 pm
“The world promises you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness,” declared Pope Benedict XVI. Unfortunately, all too many of us in the West have settled for a life of comfort and pushed all thoughts of greatness–and God–aside.
Man has never had it so good as he does today in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. We rarely ever have to worry today if we will have enough food to eat; indeed, we have so much food on our plates that obesity, rather than starvation, is a top health scourge. We live in ever bigger houses and apartments, spaces that people a hundred years ago could not imagine. And we have more diversions to occupy us than at any point in history, from Netflix and Amazon Prime to Xboxes and Play Stations, from a plethora of restaurants and cafes serving food from around the world to the ubiquitous pornography that can be accessed via our mobile phones and tablets. We have more bread and more circuses than the most powerful Roman emperor could have ever dreamed of.
But all these comforts have come at a great price: we have become so addicted to them that we are neglecting that most important relationship in our lives—with God—and have lost the desire to do great things in life. First, as studies show, as the wealth of the West has increased, its devotion to God has decreased. Churches across the West are closing at record rates and “none” is becoming the preferred choice of more and more people when asked about their religion. Indeed, for first time in history in England there are more unbelievers than Christians and in the United States church attendance is at an all-time low. Why is this the case? Because God demands that we worship Him before all else and love our neighbor as ourselves, two things we refuse to do as we are focused solely on ourselves and all the comforts around us. We have fallen for the first lie told to Adam and Eve, that we “shall be as gods.”
Second, wallowing in a life of comfort has sapped our desire to do great things. We have grown fat and lazy as we focus solely on satisfying our own insatiable wants; all too many of us cannot see anything outside of our own worlds and our own comfort. As a result, we decline to become leaders in our homes, in our churches, in our children’s schools, in our communities, and in our government. Why should others concern us? “What? Attend that church meeting? I have to watch that new premiere on Netflix. Go on a missions trip? I am too busy going to a Sandals resort. Go to a school board meeting? I have to try out that new restaurant that opened up. Do something great? I want to play on my Xbox.” Greatness is something that we read about in history books.
Tragically, as we have increasingly concentrated solely on ourselves and neglected God and greatness, we have been allowing Western Civilization to crumble all around us. An energized and radicalized elite in our media, our universities, Big Business, Big Tech, our government, and our universities has been doing all they can these past sixty years to destroy our Judeo-Christian heritage at a record pace by forcing down our throats the radical LGBT agenda, the sexual revolution, secularism, multiculturalism, Marxism, and the like. If we are going to preserve Western Civilization, a civilization that successfully guided us for almost 2,000 years, we will have to stop worshipping ourselves and our comforts and begin again to listen to God and dare great things. We need to awake from our comfort-induced slumber. And we need to make the words of Aragorn before the Battle before the Black Gate in the Return of the King our clarion call:
“My brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me! A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the age of Men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!”