#22 Buffers

Besides owning up to my sin, the hardest part of my week is my long run on Sundays.  That’s what I am gearing up for mentally the whole week. 

Pretty lame.

When the world is burning and children are enslaved and Jesus’ precious people are crying, I’m sighing over my aching knees.  The buffer between me and deep suffering stretches wider than my eyes see.

Jesus touched lepers and lifted adulterous women from the dirt.  When was the last time that I sat next to a person like that?  Connected right at their level to share some of the grace I’ve been given? 

What if I spent myself physically to further the Lord’s kingdom instead of my own goals?  What if I had to collect courage all week to do something equally as strenuous, but this time directly for someone else’s good? 

The Lord wouldn’t love me more.  I don’t win favor by doing more.  I won’t “finally be good enough.”  Jesus’ blood makes me good enough whether I am Mother Teresa or the thief on the cross.  But I’d bet that I’d get to know Jesus on a totally different level.  I bet I’d be alive on a totally different level.  That’s the life I’d love to look back on, giftwrapped and ready to give to Jesus at the end of my life.