Good Intentions – a sad but funny story
So, I am trying to ride my bike to work at least once a week. Depending upon the weather and my schedule I pick a day and just do it. It’s a 17 mile round trip and I end up burning around 1200 calories. It’s that last fact that is a real motivator. The more often I do that the more I don’t have to worry about what I eat and drink. However, I don’t ride my bike from home. I drive to the Horse Park and park at the head of the Legacy Trail, a run, walk, bike trail that takes me right to work. It’s a great trail and it was a cool morning. It was a perfect morning.
It’s the drive to the Horse Park bit that makes my actions inexcusable. You’ll see what I mean in a minute.
On Tuesday night I packed my backpack. This time I even remembered underwear and an extra shirt for the trip back. Nothing defeats the clean and fresh feeling of a shower like having to wear sweaty underwear. I remembered to pack a water bottle this time. The last time, and first time, I was left dying of thirst and remained dehydrated most of the day. I even packed my laptop to use at my second job that evening. I thought I had everything and made my way to the car. As I left the driveway I remembered that someone had borrowed my truck last weekend and removed my bike helmet from the back seat. Proud for not forgetting it, and recalling an innocent trip to Wal-Mart that resulted in a tumble over the handle bars, I opened the garage door and retrieved my helmet.
Before I got to the end of the street I recognized that my lovely wife had left the truck on empty. She had taken my truck the night before which put a little monkey wrench into my plans to pack everything up for my trip as soon as I got home from our family outing. So, I pulled into the gas station to fill up, and was on my way in no time.
I arrived at the trail promptly at 7:00 am and judged that I would be to work, showered and in my chair by 8:00 am. I parked smartly behind a tree so that I would get afternoon shade. I selected my podcast for the ride, opened the Map My Tracks App and selected cycling as the exercise of choice. I made sure my Garmin Forerunner was reading my heart monitor and I exited the vehicle with my backpack in tow.
I looked into the bed of the truck and was immediately struck by what I saw.
NOTHING!
That’s right I had everything but the bike for my bike ride. I was tempted to run the trail but a recently strained right calf was far from ready for that.
I know what you are saying, “How do you forget your bike?”
Here’s the kicker. I had multiple opportunities to recognize that the bike was missing. I walked right past the bed of the truck to get in the first time. When I exited and entered the truck a second time when I went to retrieve my helmet would have been a good time to recognize. Even the gas station where I stood at the bed of my truck for at least 10 minutes would have been a redeemable situation, but it wasn’t until I needed the bike that I recognized it was missing.
I had remembered the day before that I needed to put the bike in the truck. I had planned to put the bike in the truck upon my arrival home. But I never actually put the bike in the truck.
It reminds me of the parable that Jesus tells of the two sons who were told to do something by Dad. One said he would and didn’t do it and the other said no, but did it (Matthew 21). Often our spiritual development gets short circuited by confusing intention with action. Sociologists have even discovered that you are less likely to achieve a goal if you tell others about it, than if you keep it to yourself. For some reason our brain seemingly convinces us that we’ve already achieved the goal.
I don’t know if that is what happened to me, or if habit just got in the way, or if I’m getting old, or if God knew my right calf needed another day. I’d like for the last one to be true. In any case, I failed to reach my goal for the day, but God willing, I’ll try again.
However, the events of the day have also caused me to look retrospectively at where I have confused intention and action. I’m asking, “Where have I fallen short of actually following through?” and “How can I eliminate the intention-action confusion in the future?” I might need to make a list and check it off, or maybe I just need to slow down and make sure I have everything for the journey.
Can you relate?
The Age of Christian Entitlement
“I know Jesus will forgive me.”
The last three posts have been a bit of a rant on sin that has been brewing for a while, but finally came to a head when I received the previous quote in an email. If the context for the quote were from one who was broken by the gravity of their sin, humbled by their failure, and is moving in a new direction then there is a tremendous amount of hope in that quote. But if the context is instead one of entitlement and apathy, then nothing but despair and frustration surface.
I probably didn’t coin this phrase, The Age of Christian Entitlement, but in my quest to understand my generation’s misunderstanding of the gravity of sin along with our inability to comprehend the love of God it came to me. In an effort to convert we, the Church, have tried to help people minimize their sin. We say things like, “You are no worse than me.” or “I’m just as bad.” The intention is to try to help people feel like they can be forgiven, but I wonder if it just makes them feel more comfortable with their sin. In our own lives we try to get as close to the line between sin and righteousness without going over instead of fleeing the line in the direction of righteousness. We tell people how much God loves them thinking that their desire to be loved will somehow convince them. Many have been baptized under the impression that God loves them and because of that love will excuse their sin. We have removed repentance from the equation, and that failure is leading to a lukewarm faith in America.
I’ve used phrases like the Age of Comfort to describe the American condition and how it has filtered down into the hearts of my own children and their friends who have been led to believe that not only are they entitled to iPhones, internet, cable, cars, clothes, and college, but heaven too. This overwhelming sense of fairness that plagues our youth, especially in the Bible Belt, makes them unable to comprehend how God would be unwilling to forgive them for their sin.
What entitles us to forgiveness, what entitles us to be co-heirs to the throne of grace, is that we have been transformed, changed, gone through a metamorphosis. It is not a change we have made, but have desired and regardless of how the Calvinist might spin it I do not believe God changes those who do not at least desire it, desire Him. While God may in fact be the one who moves us to that desire it does not negate the fact that we must be willing participants in the change process. I’ve already talked about how forgiveness in and of itself is a change here.
The Entitled Christian just wants the Get Out of Hell Free card, or the “get out of this set of circumstances which feels a whole lot like Hell free card.” They do not want or desire the change. They do not want or desire to realize the gravity of their sin. They do not want or desire intimacy with Christ if it requires change, repentance, transformation, metamorphosis.
I doubt the quoted person is reading my blog, but if you are…
There is NO “Get Out of Hell Free” card. You are not playing Monopoly, and there is more on the line than mortgaging Boardwalk. There is no forgiveness without repentance! You say you are a Christian, but your actions are the same as before. Just because you can add “taught the Bible” to your resume does not undo what you have done. Repent, my friend. Please, for your sake, for my sake, for the sake of the relationship you have with your kids and with your friends…repent. You are not entitled to anything but Hell in this life and the next unless you do, unless we all do.
We are not entitled to Christ!
Just Repent!
The surprising science of motivation
While I am not real keen on Daniel Pink’s former life as a speech writer for the inventor of the internet, Al Gore. I do find his case to be an interesting one.
In the Church our motivation for our work should be Christ born out of a continual recognition of the work of salvation, the hope of the resurrection, and the presence of the Holy Spirit during our life of sanctification. I find the case that Daniel makes here translates really well to those of us who follow Jesus because when we find ourselves adrift it may only take a quick look as to what our motivators have been in order to make a course correction.