But From Those Who Do Nothing . . . (NLT)

While driving North on I-55, I was struck with a desire for food. I made a last second decision to exit at McClain, being lured by the Golden Arches. I was long over due for my annual fall to the temptation of whatever menu item has the most Monopoly pieces on it. I pumped $30 worth of gas, then dropped another $7 on a meal. Living the life of a bachelor is grand. (Ooh wait, I haven’t yet blogged about Mollie and the kids spending five days in Minnesota. I guess I was saving it up for Sunday or Monday, when the absence will have made me the fondest.)

On my way out of Mic-e-D’s, I was approached by a man and his wife. His greeting from a fair distance quickly roused my senses; I knew I was going to be asked for something. Instantly, I felt myself directing my feet in the straightest path towards my car, as if I could will my self away more quickly than the man could approach. He opened with, “I’m not a criminal, but my wife, my child and I are trying to get to St. Louis. Could you spare some change for gas?”

This was an opportunity for me, a chance to live out what I claim to believe, that I serve a loving God and He has afforded me the freedom to share his love with others. This was my time to ‘be his hands and feet,’ to walk in the very footprints of every Christian cliché I have been brought up to believe. How did I accept this challenge of my faith? I couldn’t look him in the eye and I didn’t say yes.

It didn’t take the thirty steps back to my car to know I had failed. Confronted in the moment, I had become everything I hate; I was mistrusting, I was scared, I was hoarding of my own wealth. I knew what I should have done was invite him over to the pump and drop a paper dime in his tank. It would have been so easy and cost me so little, less than I had spent on fast food in the last twelve hours. But I had caved to my selfishness, wanting nothing less than to be rid of this nuisance, to be left to myself and left with my own.

This is not the first time I have failed so miserably to live a life worth living. I do not know if this most recent time will be one that sticks with me, haunting me in my self loathing, but I suspect it may. It will join the time an old man knocked on my door. His hair was combed, but still showed signs of being long unkempt. He wore a suit jacket that had long ago passed its prime and may have even surpassed its useful life. The breast of the suit was parted by a poorly knotted tie. He introduced himself and asked for work, any odd job that would help him support his family. While you already know where this will end, I suspect you cannot guess how far I fell from the path set before me. I huddled behind a half open storm door, as though fully opening the door might let more into my life than I was willing to accept, and sent curt responses through the narrow opening. When I shut the door behind me, the man safely on the other side, I had again fallen short of the glory of even my God’s most miserable servant, for one who served in any way was more than I.

Inside my house, I realized how much of a lie I had sewn. I had told the man we didn’t have any odd jobs for him to do. Lies! I hate mowing the lawn, I despise weeding, I rarely clean the house and even the garbage cans sit full for too long. Why am I so scared to let a stranger into my life, even for a moment? Should I be so scared of being ripped off, of someone lying to me, that I keep everyone at arm’s length and overlook those who are truly in need?

And then I think of my son. My mind focuses on him, instead of his little sister because I have begun to see the person he is becoming. How can I hope to teach him about my God, His love and compassion, if I cannot show it through my own actions? If I continue to fail so, I will rob my son of one of the greatest gifts I can lead him to, a love for those around him that is fed by the love of a God that surrounds him.

How easily and slowly life has consumed me. In college, Guffey and I heard a preacher talking about how people saw changes in his life that they thought were ‘excessively Christian’ would declare that he was “not alright.” He took it as a compliment, proudly proclaiming, “Twenty years later, and I’m still not alright!” Mr. Guffey and I strove to make sure that we too, and the life we lead for Christ, were not ‘alright.’ And then there was work, and a family and wasteful hobbies that fill my time. Much that is best has been squeezed out of life by things that are merely good, okay or filth. (Not to say that family is to be categorized as anything but best, but to spend any time at all merely existing within a family is far from excellence.) Now I live a life of the unchallenged Christian; I go to church on Sunday, I love my family, but I retreat from any true calling in my life in lieu of that which is easy, or that which entertains. Any onlooker would see a happy man, part of a good family, but little more. I have fallen so far; I am merely alright.

(NLT - New Living translation, Matthew 25:29)