Give It Up

This cat at my church came to me the other day with a proposition.

Seems like the church used to have a Boy Scout troop before I joined, and they are getting it started again. As part of that effort, they are starting something called "Explorers" and the guy was asking me if I might be interested in participating.

I was shook.

No, it's not because I'm scared of the Boy Scouts and their late night campfires. Nah, I was shook because I thought he was asking me for another chunk of my steadily dwindling personal time, and I was trying to figure out a way to decline without feeling like I was cheating God.

When I first decided to write about Gandhi's social sins, the sin of "Religion Without Sacrifice," was the one topic I couldn't wait to tackle. This sin cuts to the core of what I see as one of the major plagues on mankind.

It's not because all religious folks are bad people, or because they all refuse to sacrifice. However, many of us religious folks have focused on sacrificing in the wrong areas, and instead of making the world a better place, we've screwed things up horribly.

Look, I know we (and by "we" I mean Christians, since that's all I really know) try hard. Most of the church folks I know are just trying to live their lives in a better way. Sure, there are bad apples, but as a whole, I've found that believers of all colors and economic backgrounds care about serving God and being decent people.

As long as it's not too hard.

That's the catch. It can't be too hard. And when I say hard, I don't mean that most Christians refuse to do difficult tasks. Many believers have jobs or hobbies that require them to risk life and limb to make the world better. Or they may give massive amounts of their time and money to volunteer efforts. No, what I mean is that while folks might do difficult tasks, that don't do tasks that are difficult for them.

Now that's sounds kind of screwy, so let me break it down. I once told me wife that I don't have a problem with compromising, I just have a problem with compromising on things I care about. If she wants ice cream and I don't particularly care about ice cream, we can have whatever flavor she likes. If she wants to go to the movies, and I don't care about what movie we watch, then I might get stuck watching The Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood. (That really happened.)

Compromise comes easy on those situation because I'm not sacrificing anything. I don't really care about the outcome, so anything can happen. But, when it's an issue that's important to me, like something involving a large outlay of my money, then I become so stubborn that mules passing me by on the street do a double take.

Our faith should push us to places where we are uncomfortable, it should have us constantly reevaluating our lives and how we are living them. In fact, I think the biggest sacrifice any Christian can make is to sacrifice "comfort."

My point is that not only is it important to make sacrifices in the name of God, it's important to make the right sacrifices.

It's not enough to sacrifice money, if time is the thing that's really valuable in your life. It's not enough to be at every function, if the thing you're really miserly about is your money.

Attempting to establish a deep personal relationship with God without being willing to give up things you hold dear is foolish...

Oh, and I agreed to do the Explorers thing at church. Turns out they didn't even need an additional time commitment from me.

Too funy.


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