When I was a single man in my 20’s, I was glad that my kitchen had a fridge. The microwave was my oven. The toaster device that the upper crusted man used to hold the plebeians down. There was no need for a dishwasher-you can’t wash paper and to-go bags, anyway.
Now that I am entering my 36th year, there are some amenities that I find to be rewarding and beneficial to life with three children.
- You don’t have enough room in your refrigerator? Buy a deep freeze.
- Tired of whipping up cake batter by hand? Kitchen Aid has just the device for you.
- Do you need to mop quickly but just don’t have the time? Let me introduce you to my Swiffer Wet Jet.
Life is much simpler with three children when you have the first world problem of convenience.
Two weeks ago, I was made aware of the essence of health at the fingertips of simplicity.
Hope called me from Costco. It was Saturday and I had chosen not to make the trip because every person who knows four people in the tri-state area shops at Costco on Saturday (most say that it is to purchase in surplus-honest people acknowledge that samples are out in full force). Amongst the frozen pizzas bites, chicken pot pie-filled cups, and unidentifiable seafood spread on small crackers, there was a full-on presentation for the Vitamix Blender-on sale.
I drove to Costco and watched the display from beginning to end. The lady was wearing a Britney Spears/Garth Brooks style head-mic and was dishing out samples at an astonishing rate. These included:
- An apple smoothie made with apples, lime, and kale
- A chicken (broth) tortilla soup made with chicken broth, celery, and a carrot
- Chocolate ice cream prepared with pistachios, dirt, and a root
Every sample made me want one. I felt my health returning from one too many stops to Taco Bell. I have strawberries and a tree full of leaves in the backyard-I would never need Smoothie King again.
It was all so simple. Grab the blender-get the benefits.
And at home, if you have this kitchenary masterpiece and a few random pieces of produce, it is a breeze.
But I am not home all of the time.
And sometimes I don’t want any tree bark chips mixed into my food-even if I can barely taste them.
And I can’t plug it into my 2008 Honda Accord...and, even if I could, it can’t blend empty water bottles and make a sippable souffle.
I am fully aware that I own the blender...and even more aware that the blender doesn’t own me. I tell the blender when i want its benefits and when I don’t.
For much of evangelical Christianity, there is awareness that we own Jesus (in our hearts, in our lives, etc). There is much less of a realization that he owns us. There is even an apathy towards it. In everyone of us, there is a fierce rebellious streak against the anything that would control us or even ask us to consider the question, “Were you there when I put the stars laid the earth’s foundation?” as God asked Job.
The answer is, of course, no. As one of the quintessential poets of the hair band era, John Bon Jovi, once stated, “It’s my life...now or never...I ain’t gonna live forever.” The fear in each of us that rears its’ head is that we will not get out of life every ounce of consumer-driven joy that this world offers. So, we dwindle the concept of Jesus down to somewhat of a luxury item rather than a God who comes with a light burden...but burden nonetheless. As long as we ‘make’ Jesus ours, when it is convenient for spiritual health, we can blend in a carrot’s worth of prayer here or pack of spinach at the altar there.
Is there a problem with that?
Yes.
Well, what is it?
Jesus is a person-not a concept.
He is a person who ‘gives life and breath and everything else.’
He is person who demands that we ‘make disciples of all nations.’
He is a person commands us to ‘carry a cross daily.’
Jesus is a person who definitely makes Himself known to us, reminds us that He is with us, but more importantly than either of those, claims that we are to be:
- ‘In Him’ is life and that life is the light of men (John 1:4)
- We are chosen ‘in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 1:4)
- We find grace ‘in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 1:9)
- ‘In Him’ we are the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21)
- We know the love of God ‘in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39)
These are only a few of the examples from the Scriptures as to what it means for us to be in Him. There are not enough chips off of the iceberg to make a Sno Cone, yet we see that an infinite God points to our joyous destination for God honoring existence as being in His Son.
So Jesus is fully functional at your home and church and when you are around pastors and what not. You have confessed with your mouth and believed in your heart and God calls you His child.
And Jesus is in your SUV as you drive down the road reminding you that, more than you ‘got Him’, through His work on the cross He brought you in…
And Jesus is after your heart as everything in you says ‘flight’ when the pressures of the job and the pressures of family and the pressures of pressure push you and tell you that you have every right to be ‘out’, it is the calm (and not so calm) peaceful (yet stern) loving (and disciplined) voice of Jesus that says, ‘No. No. No. you are in…”
And, for those who are in, He doesn’t even have to wear a microphone for you to hear.
