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 read this poem today in my Voice of the Martyrs magazine, and it's disturbing me. How often am I guilty of wanting just $3 worth of God? I want just enough to make me feel good about myself, but not enough to make me desire more of God.

Again, this morning I am finding myself praying to be overwhelmed by God and changed radically from the inside out because I'm seeing more and more and more that my lukewarm Christianity isn't really loving Christ at all.