This is how many of us want our faith life ….
Quick. 4 seconds. Let me get back in the race.
This propensity struck me at a recent camp. Sitting there in front of teens, it is ever so easy to speak to the possibility without sacrifice, to speak to “5 easy steps” to achieve this, that, or the other thing. I am a sucker for that stuff! It is the “health and wealth gospel” that has slid into much formal religion. Give the gas, a new set of tires, and set them screaming back into the race.
But that is not the Gospel.
The Gospel asks time and patient investment. It does not yield easy answers but instead authors slow transformation. Things then “grow.” They don’t “appear.” There is not a “screaming off to…” There is a measured “settling into….” It draws from “peace” and never “frenzy.”
Not an easy message for adults or teens in this culture!
So what did I tell the teens? With a smile, I told them, that like me, they were spoiled and lazy. I told them that like me, as the famous saying, they were born on third base and wanted praise for hitting a triple. And I told them they could make a difference in the world. It will just take more than 4 seconds.
