Sunday morning Tany and I were back at Above Bar Church where we first met. It was good to be around old friends and great to see a Sunday morning service so full of kids.

Income Tax - photograph by Alan Cleaver - Available: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alancleaver/4105756012/

Paul was preaching on the parable Jesus told about the rich young ruler. The basic premise of the story being that this rich young guy was challenged by Jesus to sell everything to follow Jesus.

Fortunately, Jesus doesn’t often ask us to give up everything, but sometimes he may put us in a position where we have to make some sacrifices. Personally, I have found that it’s easier to give stuff up if you can acknowledge that God is sovereign – in charge of everything – and if you’ve got it he’s given it to you in the first place.

Tany occasionally jokes that our wedding vows should have been something like, “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine too” – you can decide who the statement belongs to. But, it’s much easier sharing with Tany than it is with other people, mostly because since getting married our possessions are ours, not mine or hers.

Interestingly, I was reading Hamo’s Backyard Missionary blog a few days ago, where he wrote about a guy called Phil who was heading off to Afghanistan with his family. Phil was quoted as saying…

‘When Christ calls a man, he bids him “Come and die” ‘. Thus said Bonhoeffer, and while he meant it in a spiritual sense – that is, the death of one’s private ego and aspirations – I think he also meant it literally. And as it turned out for Bonhoeffer, it was a literal and a spiritual command. I suppose it could turn out that way for us.

We are ok with that. Shouldn’t anyone of faith be ok with that? Jesus, whom I follow, called people – anyone who listened – to abandon security and safety and the protection of their own life. Heck, we are going to die anyway, and who says my life is so tremendously significant that I ought to fiercely protect it? ‘Ahhh’, you say, ‘but you have children now. Fine to go and die for your dreams, but what about them?’ Good point. For what it is worth, the kids are very happy to be going back to Afghanistan. They are looking forward to the TVs on the plane, they tell me. And if I tell them to live lives of committed faith, but fail to do so myself, isn’t that some kind of hypocrisy?

That is not meant to sound trite, or cheap. It is simply that it is easy to turn away from atrocity and hardship: that is in fact the mantra for modern living – ‘take it easy, enjoy, relax, you deserve it.’ This is a particularly powerful message as you get older, when you are supposed to be settling down and end your youthful adventuring. ‘Let someone else go to Afghanistan’, is a message we have heard many times in the last months.

You should read Phil’s blog, Itinerant and Indigent, too.

Consider

• Is there anything you would refuse to give up to ‘inherit eternal life‘?
• Is there anything you need to give to God?