Laundry Lessons

An Inspiring Story About Socks 

This morning, while preparing for a run, I was rummaging around in a small pile of clothes for the companion to one of my favorite athletic socks. I held its counterpart in my right hand and a small bundle of clothes I had hastily grabbed to move out of the way in my left hand, all while shuffling other clothes in the large pile around with my tightened fist. Finally, after about two minutes of searching, I gave up, assuming that the sock was still in the wash with another load of laundry. But, when I laid down the bundle of clothes I was holding, I discovered that the twin sock had been nestled in that tiny heap the entire time.

I know this story was incredibly gripping and moved you to reevaluate the entire course of your life. I promise, it really does have a point.

Sometimes, we spend our lives searching for the very thing that we already hold in our possession. The “grass is always greener” is a concept infecting the thoughts of many. We are blessed with so much, and yet we keep searching. I think this happens for a lot of reasons, but here are two that I see often (and relate directly to my exciting sock story).

1. We forget how precious each blessing is.

The truth of the matter is that it is human nature to underappreciate. Entitlement is a disease infecting us all, and the strongest strain of that disease is most definitely in America, the land of abundance. Whether it’s material possessions, family, basic human rights, or even faith, so many begin to look at these things as if they are owed to us, when in reality they are gracious gifts of God. In the midst of this faulty assumption, we find these blessings growing ever more dull and often fail to see their value any longer.

How sad when we complain about not having enough, when we hurt our families because we forget how intrinsically precious they are, when we take for granted the rights men and women have given their very lives to protect, when we treat God like a vending machine instead of our closest and truest Friend all because we fail to assign proper value to these things. 

2. We let these blessings get buried under piles of life.

Like my favorite sock, blessings can be hidden under piles of unnecessary clutter. Sometimes, we get so bogged down with work, school, programs, church events, destructive relationships, etc. that we lose sight of the most important things in life. When our souls come up empty, we head over to the “laundry pile” of our lives to try to find the satisfying element. The saddest moment is when we realize that it had been at our fingertips the whole time, completely accessible to us, and buried under mounds of the unimportant and unnecessary. If we refuse to let the useless junk go, we will find ourselves continually miserable, and we might just lose those underappreciated gifts (especially if those gifts are people).  

A Good Long Look

I encourage you—if you are searching for something today, take inventory of the life you have before setting out to add to it. If you take a good long look at what already fills your hands, you might find that you had what you were looking for the whole time.

Politics, Explosions, America, Christians, Ebola, and Sheldon Cooper: This Should Be Fun

Starbucks

As I sat with my family around the table at Starbucks a few nights ago, we spoke on the subject of America, which led to the subject of politics, which led to the subject of war, which led to the subject of nuclear explosions and the seemingly subjective morality surrounding weapons of such magnificent power and brutal repercussions. As we began to "solve the world's problems" together, I came on rather forcefully when I said, "This is all stupid."

As a child, I tended toward the typical conservative “bomb everything, close the borders, and poor people should get a job” viewpoints that lace the psyches of so many Conservative Christians. I adhered to those beliefs because they were popular in my circles. However, I don't feel the same way about many of the things I believed as a child. I made the choices to develop into my own man and reorganize my beliefs accordingly. 

Now, before dismissing this post as a political commentary, please read on because it is not my intention to create more division in a world that is already more divided Sheldon Cooper’s sixth grade science binder.

If you live in America, then you know that these political topics are more contagious than Ebola. Most likely, everybody reading this post has already given them plenty of thought (and probably force-fed several others a hearty spoonful of their opinions). My goal here is to cultivate some thought about priorities.

The Unseen Division of Distance

It’s so easy for humans to disassociate the faces, names, and intricate lives of their same-species counterparts based on a factor so trivial as distance. We are divided physically by distance, but it also divides us mentally, emotionally, and, often times, spiritually. It causes us to trivialize important things, idealize terrible things, and euphemize awkward things.  

Since it’s already been mentioned, let’s just use the Ebola scare as an example: why didn’t people in America blow up Facebook with news about Ebola or any other pathogen claiming the lives of hundreds or thousands before it threatened Americans? That terrible disease has been wiping out droves of people in Africa for years, but those people are far away.

Because most of us aren’t faced with the harsh reality of substandard hospitals and rampant spread of lethal illnesses, we don’t really give much thought to what that is like. Kind of like when we aren’t having bombs diminishing us to ash or chlorine gas suffocating us, we don’t give much thought to the men, women, and children this is happening or has been happening to in many volatile middle eastern nations. Distance is the murderer of empathy.

The Part About Christians and America

I won’t pose an ethical question like: is it justified to bomb nations filled with innocent people because there are guilty people hiding behind the numbers of innocent? But, I will ask this question, why aren’t Christians wrestling with questions like that and coming to honest, biblical conclusions? Those conclusions will ultimately define our convictions. When we are talking about something, anything—pathogenic, explosive, oppressive, violent, unjust etc.—compromising the lives and wellbeing of unsaved people, shouldn’t our first response be, “No! I will do anything and everything in my power to make sure these people hear the Gospel before it is too late,” or is there another option?

Recently, someone important to me made the difficult decision to walk out of my life—at least most practical aspects of my life. But, I decided that I would not allow this person to make such a decision without being positively certain that they had considered completely all the ramifications of their actions. I wanted to be sure that there was no doubt as to the seriousness of the situation, so I sent a few messages outlining every possible contingency I could think of and made sure that the person was informed and understood where I was coming from. I didn’t want that person to make the wrong decision out of ignorance.

Now, that person still made the choice to be distanced from me, and that’s okay because my conscience is clear. They knew how I felt and did not walk away uninformed. I’m at peace because of my certainty that I have done everything I can. I’ve left everything else in God’s hands and handled it only in prayer.

This principle should apply to the infinite power with something as fundamentally important to human lives as eternal salvation. People have the right to know about Jesus, and that supernatural right trumps our American rights to determine who gets blown up, or told to leave the country, or whatever else we like to fight about. If vast distances and a desire to live “safe lives” prevent us from loving and opening our hearts to people everywhere, then we have truly missed the point of our purpose on this earth. The only reason Christians are even still here is to be the hands and feet of Christ!

Conclusion

Should we make American borders airtight? I don’t know, and I won’t attempt to argue that question with you. But why are so many American Christians more concerned with the closing of American borders than they are with the openness of Jesus’ arms? Why are they more concerned about being temporarily safe in America than the lost being eternally saved in Heaven? When did our politics become intermingled with our piety?

I don’t know if it’s right or wrong to blow up a nation full of people (my gut says it’s wrong), but I do have serious problem with a nation full of people never getting the chance to hear about Jesus before some trigger-happy politician melts the skin off their bones with the touch of a button. I don’t know if it’s right or wrong to close American borders to the outside world, but I do know that Christians better be penetrating the borders of every nation with the truth of the Gospel and that we must retain open hearts. I don’t know if the government should be feeding poor people, but I know the Church has no excuse to not be feeding them.

When did our comfort become more valuable to us than our calling? Why are we more concerned with making arguments than with making disciples? These are the questions that should be driving us to our knees with conviction and keeping us awake at night. It’s time the Gospel takes precedence over government, that sacrificial love replaces sentimental legalism, and that spiritual leadership replaces “sanctified” lethargy. It’s time that we stop trying to save people’s souls with the word of the Constitution and start seeing them saved by the Word of God. It’s time that we close the gaps of unseen distance in our hearts, minds, prayers, and actions so that we can ultimately close the distance between heaven and hell for those who are lost.