“This book isn’t just a book about the journey into the mountains. It’s a journey into your own heart- to see who you really are and to see the world as it really is, in a way that your life, no matter where you live or what you do, cannot stay the same.” – David Platt
Below are my highlights from David Platt’s, Something Must Change. Each quote is concise, maintaining a complete idea. They follow a consistent and successive train of thought to reflect congruency and order for the reader. I hope to challenge you as I have been challenged, and I hope his words move you to act as the Lord desires.
“I was crying uncontrollably because of what others were missing. Things like water, food, family members…freedom and hope. I so longed for them to have these things that I couldn’t help it.” (Pg. 1,2)
“It makes me wonder if we’ve lost our capacity to weep. It makes me wonder if we have subtly, dangerously, and almost unknowingly guarded our lives, our families, and even our churches from truly being affected by God’s words to us in a world of urgent spiritual and physical needs around us.” (Pg. 2)
“We talk a lot about the need to know what we believe in our heads, yet I wonder if we have forgotten to feel what we believe in our hearts.” (Pg. 2,3)
“How else are we to explain our ability to sit in services and hear sermons celebrating how Jesus is the hope of the world, yet rarely (if ever) fall on our faces weeping for those who don’t have this hope and then take action to make this hope known to them?” (Pg. 3)
“Jesus wept over those in need.” (Pg. 3)
“Surely God didn’t design the gospel of Jesus to be confined to our minds and mouths in the church, yet disconnected from our emotions and actions in the world.” (Pg. 3)
“I don’t want to hide my most profound questions from you… For example, if the gospel is really true and God is really good, then where are the truth and goodness of God amid extreme poverty and pain?” (Pg. 5)
“Why are so many people born into an earthy hell only to move on to an eternal one?” (Pg. 5)
“It’s one thing to ask these things standing behind a podium… but a whole other thing to ask these questions when you’re standing with a man whose wife and kids died in a matter of hours of preventable disease because no medicine was available.” (Pg. 5)
“Or when you’re looking into the face of a twelve-year-old girl who wants sex with you, because that’s what she was sold and enslaved to do since she was ten.” (Pg. 5)
“Or when you’re watching a body physically burn on a funeral pyre and you know that person never even heard of Jesus.” (Pg. 5)
“Something needs to change.” (Pg. 6)
“When I came to these villages I learned that half the children were dying before their eighth birthday. Many weren’t making it to their first.” (Pg. 27)
“One of my greatest fears is losing one of my children- I can’t comprehend that actually being an expectation.” (Pg. 28)
“Due to poor sanitation and unclean water people became infected with cholera. After only a couple of days, sixty were dead.” (Pg. 34)
“She couldn’t bear having lost two of her three children so one-day Sijan’s wife took a rope, found a tree, and hunger herself.” (Pg. 34)
“A year before, he had a wife and three kids in his home. Now he’s alone with his little boy.” (Pg. 34)
“It’s not unheard of for parents to keep their kids in the barn. Usually this occurs when a child has some kind of disability. Many villagers believe these kids are cursed, and they don’t want the curse in their house. One handicapped child we found had been chained in a barn with the animals for ten years.” (Pg. 39)
“Make note of the lack of girls in the village between the ages of about twelve and twenty. The reason is, most of the young girls here have been trafficked over the last five or so years, often started when they are about seven.” (Pg. 41,42)
“A man will come into a cabin restaurant, take one of these precious young girls by the hand, lead her into a booth, eat with her, drink with her, and have his way with her body however he pleases.” (Pg. 43)
“Sometimes fifteen to twenty men a day have had their way with one of these girls.” (Pg. 43)
“Why, God? If you are in control of all things, then why do you let this happen? Why have you not saved these girls from this slavery? Why have you not struck down every single one of these traffickers?” (Pg. 44)
“Either God exists or he doesn’t, which makes one person’s beliefs true and the other’s false, regardless of how passionately one holds that belief.” (Pg. 62)
“The purpose of a symbol is to express a reality greater than what can be expressed in words, so it should bring no solace to think that the Bible’s descriptions of hell might be symbolic.” (Pg. 71)
“If there’s no struggle with what you believe about hell, then you don’t really believe in hell.” (Pg. 72)
“In all my religious learning and responsibility, I find it dangerously easy to walk past urgent needs and do nothing about it. And I need God to change that in me.” (Pg. 89)
“As I sit in the middle of this family of brothers and sisters on this remote mountainside, I can’t help but think of how easy it is to get caught up in so much extra stuff in the church that we miss the essence of who God has called us to be and what he has called us to do.” (Pg. 105)
“I long to be a part of a church like this. I want to be a part of a community that is simply committed to the most important things: caring for the hurting with compassion and spreading God’s love to the hopeless with courage.” (Pg. 106)
“I want to be part of the church like God has designed it to be.” (Pg. 106)
“I’m reminded of how easily I can shape my religion to suit my convenience.” (Pg. 136)
“Devotion to Jesus means denial of oneself and death to one’s thoughts, desires, plans, and dreams.” (Pg. 137)
“If I’m not careful, I can easily have a romantic view of following Jesus in the world.” (Pg. 146)
“It doesn’t feel too costly to follow Christ in America. Sure, it means giving time and money we might spend elsewhere, but we’re not in danger of being stoned or being abandoned with nothing to our name like the pastor I’d met two nights ago.” (Pg. 147)
“I realize there is a constant lure toward comfort and away from needs in the world. That lure is strong, and I need brothers and sisters to remind me continually that the life of a Christian is always costly- for people who are actually following Christ.” (Pg. 148)
“This is why people over here don’t make it. This is hard work, and it doesn’t succeed overnight. What’s needed are people who are willing to work hard for ten or twenty years until a breakthrough happens.” (Pg. 156)
“There’s really only one thing worse than being lost. What’s worse is being lost when no one is trying to find you.” (Pg. 178)
“With that thought, I fall asleep thinking about the individual ones I’ve encountered who, at that moment, have no one trying to find them.” (Pg. 179)
“Rich people who neglect the poor inevitably reveal the hidden reality that they are ultimately not people of God.” (Pg. 184)
“I just know I cannot- and we cannot- continue with business as usual. Something needs to change now.” (Pg. 189)
“The verses of Scripture make clear that God holds you and me accountable for what we know.” (Pg. 192)
“God has created your life to count in a world of urgent need.” (Pg. 195)
“Open your eyes to opportunities you have to use your time, your money, and your talents to spread the gospel where it hasn’t gone and to serve people who desperately need to see and feel God’s love face to face.” (Pg. 196)
“Today. You are surrounded by people who are separated from God and on the way to eternal suffering. And you have the antidote to this problem!” (Pg. 200)
“We can fill our churches with all kinds of things that are not in the Bible. We can focus our churches on buildings that cater to our comforts and budgets with programs that prioritize our preferences. But this is not who God has called the church to be or what God has called the church to do.” (Pg. 201)
“You are standing right now on the doorstep of eternity, and you have not guaranteed tomorrow. So run [your race] while you still have time today.” (Pg. 203)
“As you take this challenge I offer you this guarantee: the more you give your life spreading the love of Jesus in a world of urgent need, the more you will experience the joy of Jesus in your life. I promise you, there are few things more fulfilling than bringing hope to the hurting, becoming family to the forgotten, announcing freedom to the captive, and leading those on the road to eternal death to know eternal life.” (Pg. 205)
“I close with this simple question for your reflection- and action: What something needs to change in your life to effect change with the hope of Jesus in a world of urgent spiritual and physical need?” (Pg. 206)
The message of this book is so simple and powerful. People all around us are suffering physically and spiritually, and Platt is calling the people of God (you) to change something in their lives to do something about it- to make their life count where it matters most.
God works through the people that surrender their lives to him. God does not use stubborn, comfortable people, but people who say “here I am” will be sent by God to be a blessing to others, no matter the cost.
Amid a dying and desperate world, God is working through the people who are available and willing to love others around them even when it costs them their comfort and convenience.
So as followers of Christ, it should be no surprise to us to “take up our cross” and die to ourselves to provide for the needs of others. The world needs it, and Christ commands it.
