Don’t expect life to be handed to you on a golden* platter

One of the things that impresses me as I drive through oak bay, broadmead, and other areas of finer homes, is the beauty of the landscaping. The homeowner (or their gardener), can’t sit back and hope that in the spring the bulbs will pop out of the ground, or in the summer the grass will stay green and at an even 5cm high. The homeowner must get down on their knees and plant the bulbs and flowers. They must water, mow, and edge the lawn, for it to look nice.

I have a friend in cobble hill who is renovating a 75 year old home. It was built without a foundation, has no insulation in the walls, and when looking at the support beams - they have a definite arch downward. In other words, the original owner put up a two story shack that put a roof over his head, but was shoddy workmanship. Getting down on his hands and knees, my friend has crawled in the two foot crawlspace (with all kinds of other rodents) and jacked up the house. He has put in a cement foundation, and is slowly creating a home where the wallpaper doesn’t flap when the wind blows!! Scraped knuckles, and bumps on the head, has produced something more than an unimaginable vocabulary!

When a person commits their lives to god, it is the beginning of a eternal relationship with our creator and redeemer. As I look back to the hundreds that I have seen make that commitment, it saddens me to see so many of them having turned back to their old lifestyle. As we read Galatians, Paul asks the church point blank why they have turned aside from the good news and gone backwards. Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem after a few year absence, and found his Jewish brothers having done the same. Both the Galatians, those in Jerusalem, and my friends at bible camp, had originally been excited about their relationship with god. What happened?

Just like creating and maintaining a garden or home, to follow Jesus isn’t a one time act. To follow means work. It entails getting up from in front of the video game and taking action. You cannot have any type of a relationship with another person if you don’t talk with them, or listen to what they have to say.

if we aren’t prepared to set aside time every day to read his guidebook to us (the bible) and talk with him (pray), then our relationship with god is going to go downhill, just like an un-watered lawn.

Most of those reading this have already discovered that life isn’t handed to us on a golden platter. Neither is an intimate relationship with god. If we are going to prove anything to the world, its got to be that a relationship with Jesus is more than just another religion. Get off the couch, and get to work......

Narrowgate

(* ed. This is obviously an even more challenging version of the old idiom"hand to on a silver platter" meaning to provide with something valuable for nothing, or give an unearned reward to; also, make it easy for. Both terms allude to being elaborately served at the table. [Early 1900s] ;-)