North Dakota and Montana's Bakken Formation

  Several people have forwarded emails to me with a link to the United States Geological Survey website.  The news article on the site claims that there is a place where there is between three and 4.3 billion barrels of oil that could be taken from the ground and used as fuel for cars and other systems and machines using petroleum.  Where is it?  In North Dakota and Montana's Bakken Formation.  It is interesting that America imports a net of 9.4 million barrels of oil every day from 42 different countries (U.S. Energy Information Administration, www.eia.gov/tools/faqs).

This is not an article on politics.  It does, however, make a dramatic illustration.  We do not fail to drill domestically because there are no resources.  For a variety of reasons, many of which are political, we are not drilling.  It should be obvious that gas prices and energy prices would drop dramatically were these resources to be recovered.  One might assume that economic relief or improvement would follow.

In the final analysis, regarding things eternal, this will not matter to us.  Yet, I am amazed that the majority of the world has a resource infinitely more valuable that it has left untapped.  That resource is a relationship with God.  People can be surrounded by Christians, examples of righteous living, evidence of the joy and happiness in the lives of God's people.  They see their faith and sense of purpose, and may even, on some level, envy and desire it for their own lives.  But, they fail to access it.  They remain "out" of Christ.

Paul reveals that all spiritual blessings are in Christ (Eph. 1:3).  Peter speaks of our unparalleled inheritance, our protection, our joy, and our future (1 Pet. 1).  John tells us to look and see the love the Father has shown us (1 John 3:1).  A wealth of resources and resources of spiritual wealth abound in living the Christ-life.  How could anybody know about this and not tap into such blessings?  Indeed, how?

 

--Neal Pollard