Reality Checks

Yesterday was a day of reality checks. Essentially, I discovered that I needed to "have a little work done" in the spiritual face of things. It is amazing how out of line we can become--how selfish and spoiled--within a comfortable, safe zone. Life is a totally different matter when God asks for a blank check, signed by us in agreement to serve in His name--whenever, however. Let me spare you the gorey details of what I encountered and my reaction to it. That way you can fill in the blanks with whatever thing God is hounding you to do and whichever manifestation of unwillingness you are modeling--gritting your teeth or digging in your heels. The beautiful reality is that we are saying "yes" to God, not to the details. Stay with me now. Of course, in the end, we must complete the minutiae. But the point is that God is our altar, not the toilet we are scrubbing, so to speak. When we are tempted to say, whether directly to God or to His emissary, "I'm not your slave," we close our ears to Jesus' words to James and John--and to us: "whoever wants to be first must be your slave." Even further, we step out of the tracks which Jesus asked us to follow, because as the Son of Man He "came to serve, not be served" to the point of giving away His own life "in exchange for the many who are held hostage" (Matthew 20:27-28). Of course, when offered a chance to sacrifice ourselves for spiritual hostages, we might agree without hesitation or reservation. What a noble cause! Yet we prefer those hostages to be high profile and preferrably people to whom we can easily relate. Again, we are serving God not the people; yet in serving God we must serve the individual, no matter how unlovely the other person or the task. And God calls us to toe the line by being faithful to whatever task comes our way once we have said "Yes!" to His call. We combat the urge to think, "I could be doing..." or to compare the opportunity at hand with some other, more pleasant activity. Because we are God's slaves, giving our lives away for the sake of the spiritual hostages, we serve God and we won't look back (Luke 9:62)--especially during times of reality checks!