I have come to believe that our society has become blind to truth by seeking no deeper than the surface. Media has taught us that a person is only worth what is evident to the eye. Is the person wearing the right designer on the red carpet? Where are they being seen and with whom? Is there any cellulite and is her armpits properly shaven? There was a time in my life I was 20 pounds lighter and a time I was 20 pound heavier. Does one make me a more worthy human than the other?
One day I was at work at a popular coffee shop, not that that is important to my story and I was talking with a girl I work with. Now one thing that is important to my story is the physical type of people we are. Now you know me (unless you have found this blog by chance and are not one of the CLTDs at Camp Chestermere) – I am a thick person. What I mean by that is that I am build to be a warrior. In peek physical shape (which I am not nor was I at the time of my story… in fact I have never been since maybe I was 4!) I would still be the higher numbers on the BMI. I have large feet and big shoulders and have a strong build. I was always the tallest kid in my class until I hit high school. My converser was (and last I saw her a few months ago still is) quite the opposite. She was tiny!! It ended up she was (and I imagine still is) less than half my weight! I didn’t think that was possible! She was (is) less than 5’ and would be blown away in a windstorm. She could buy clothes in the kid’s section!
Now at the time I was spending much time at the gym and I was telling her how I ran for half an hour before I got to work that morning. I thought her eyes were going to pop out of her head!! She laughed (not in a mean way – she was a cool kid and I imagine still is) and said she would die if she attempted it!! See, she was a pack a day smoker and quite the partier. She stayed up late and often had to work early. She was unconcerned about what she ate and lived on coffee and rarely got exercise outside of standing at work all day.
I, on the other hand, was (mostly) concerned and consciously eating healthy foods, rarely ever drank alcohol, stuck to water for the most part over coffee and was living a healthy lifestyle including hitting the gym 4-5 times a week. Yet, on the surface she would be the one held up as ‘in shape’ and I the opposite.
I tell this story to parallel it with another I think of in the same way. I was having coffee with an individual who was rather opinionated about some behaviors of others his age and how it should make them unsuitable for Christian leadership of others. He explained to me that he doesn’t go out partying or do the things that they do and I got the feeling he was suggesting that he were a better Christian because he went to church every week and he was on the worship team and he was a weekly volunteer leading others and he… well… played the part of a ‘good Christian’.
Remind you of a biblical story? Read Luke 18:9-14 – it is a story told by Jesus of a ‘holy man’ and a ‘sinner’.
The fact of the matter, my friends, is that we are all dirty rotten sinners. Me and you and everyone else. Our standing with Christ can be read by Christ alone and can not by what we do or do not do. Anyone can jump through religious hoop to look good, but the real relationship cannot be seen by anyone outside of ourselves.
Nikki gets 2 pics because I couldn't choose between the strange face one or one from a million years ago at a 'Gilligan's Island Christmas' banquet ;)
