Give Me Oil in My Lamp

August 22, 2005

Over the past couple weeks I heard several dire predictions about where the current oil crisis may lead us. I’m not just talking about $3.00 a gallon gasoline (or $5.00 or $10.00). One geology professor said it took 100 million years to make the current supply of oil, and in just 100 years, we have effectively used it all up. There are ominous implications from the current fuel crisis for the world’s economies, geo-political-military situation, and everyday lifestyle.

One phrase we will hear more and more in the future is that we must learn to “live locally”; that is, draw our food, energy, and life essentials from within a small radius of where we live. For example, the salad you ate for lunch may have come from 3,000 miles away; the steak may have come from Argentina, the fish from Southeast Asia. In an energy depleted world, it will cost far too much to bring many of the delicacies (necessities to most of us) to our homes. So what will we be willing to give up (as if we had a choice)? Not my Brazilian coffee.

Now that I have you totally depressed, let me say I can remember living on Graball Hill in Yazoo City, MS. We didn’t have running water (except I ran it in buckets from the cistern to the house), cooked on a wood burning stove, raised our own hogs and chickens, grew and canned our own veggies and fruits, washed our clothes on a scrub board and hung them out to dry. (Can you hear the violins playing in the background, or are those banjos?) Like the county song says, “A Country Boy Will Survive!”

Why bring all this up? First, we need to understand, amid the increasingly God-“less” ness in our daily lives, how quickly we may go from feast to famine. We are not as “independent” as we may think…especially from the need of a personal relationship with God. Secondly, the impending energy crisis presents challenges (and opportunities) for the church to begin thinking about NOW, not five or ten years from now when our lamps are out of oil. Thirdly, we need not panic, but grow our faith in God who promised us an abundant life through Jesus Christ.

Oil was symbolic of miracles, healing and even faith throughout the Bible. Where one’s faith stopped, so did the supply of oil. My faith is in our God who holds the wealth of all resources in His hands. My God doesn’t have an energy crisis.