“Take heed now that you do not fail”
Ezra 4:22
One of the fun things about Summer evenings is the more relaxed pace of life. The kids’ sports cut back or disappear entirely… no homework to be done… and when the Apple of my Eye gets home from work, we often all make dinner together and maybe watch a movie.
The movie selection the other night was a family favorite, the second “Night at the Museum”, subtitled “Battle of the Smithsonian”. It has fond memories for us, because the year it came out, we happened to be visiting Washington DC, and we were lucky enough to see it in the theater that’s inside the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.
It’s a fun movie, in that the plot brings to life wax figures both fictional and historical, like George A. Custer, Sacajawea and Amelia Earhart. But the only thing I don’t like about it is that it sort of characterizes them as to be humorous. Custer, for example, is portrayed as a bit of a bumbling dandy, albeit a courageous one. And Amelia Earhart is characterized as someone adventurous and determined, but famous for getting lost. Which wasn’t really true.
It got me to thinking about how many historical figures are famous for their greatest failure. Custer and Earhart are famous for what went wrong. John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor in his time, is not remembered as such. And how about Judas Iscariot?
We tend to judge people’s whole lives, based on standout events. But when we consider our lives, we want everything weighed fairly. We want the good looked at along with the bad, like God is the great Scorekeeper in the Sky. If you ask someone, especially a non-Christian, if they believe they’ll go to heaven, they often answer yes, and then support that hope in some way that references their actions. Like, “Yes, because I’m a good person. I make a few mistakes, but overall, I’m ethical and law-abiding.”
I also think about the times I’ve heard people joking about what they wouldn’t want to be caught doing when Jesus returns. Like, they hardly ever commit this sin or that sin, but wouldn’t it be awful if Jesus came when they had their hands in the spiritual cookie jar. So to speak.
If God only knew you for one thing in your life, what would that be? Some standout event, or the thing you happen to be doing when the trumpet sounds? What would that be?
And what if that were the case? What if it mattered what you were in the middle of? What if it mattered what you just finished doing? Or what you were about to do next; the direction your heart was going next.
Although I wonder now, what are you most likely to be doing, when you should be doing something else? There might be a lesson in there…
You and I judge others, based on not very much information. God will judge based on everything. And one thing. He knows all of who you are, and yet, He cares only about your heart.
What have you done? What are you doing? And what does your heart reveal about you?
Light Expectations 