Chasing the wrong things

When I was a teenager I was riding my motorcycle home from the park where I had been shooting basketball. I had my basketball between my knees and had just turned into my subdivision. When I turned into the entrance, I saw a slow-moving tractor about halfway down the street. Mentally I told myself that I would pass the tractor before reaching the end of the street. I gave it some gas and the motorcycle responded and zoomed down the street passing the tractor. The problem was that the street I was on dead ended into another street and I had to make a ninety degree turn to the left. I was going very fast and tried to slow as much as I could and then set myself up to lean into the left turn.

There was loose slag and gravel in the road and as I went into the sharp turn the bike slid out from under me and I went sliding down the street with the motorcycle on top of me. Not good! When the bike came to a stop I was trapped underneath and the wheel was still turning and was scraping my leg and eating a hole in it. I was not wearing a helmet, or leather pants or leather coat, and my Bermuda shorts, tee shirt, and tennis shoes did little to protect me from the pavement and the bike. I was struggling trying to get the heavy bike off of me or at least turn the blasted thing off and stop the wheel from burning through to the bone. I noticed the man on the tractor had gotten off the tractor and was chasing my basketball down the street. Huh? I’m lying there with a motorcycle that is still running on top of me bleeding from stem to stern and this Good Samaritan is retrieving my basketball for me? Arghhh…

This incident reminds me of a friend of mine who has more problems in his life right now than Bayer has aspirin. He has been married and divorced twice and he and his current very beautiful girlfriend have serious problems and are contemplating breaking up. He has one of the best jobs that one could imagine and makes excellent money, but in spite of his huge paydays has overspent and now faces severe financial problems. He has problems with his family; in fact you name just about any category and he has problems in it.

Currently he is seeing a therapist twice a week. He takes several sleeping pills in order to sleep and has started hitting the booze a little hard. He reminds me of the old man chasing my basketball down the street; (instead of more correctly rendering aid to someone trapped under a motorcycle, me!). His attempts to find peace could be better spent. He told me that he desperately wants peace and happiness in his life, but just cannot seem to ever find it. He is intelligent and I suppose would be considered to be a good looking young man by the ladies. He comes from a wealthy family who love him and has an excellent education with two degrees. It seems that he would have everything going for him, but instead he is miserable and I worry borderline suicidal. He needs God in his life. He needs to pursue the righteous things in life.

I tell him all of that, and then he gives me some crap about churches being full of hypocrites, and then tells me about a bad experience he had at a church, and someone he knows who carries religion too far, blah blah, blah I counter with hypocrites ought to be in church where they can get the help that they need to turn from that sin and learn to get better, and churches are not Gods but simply a group of people with faults like every other human on the planet. They are forgiven those sins by a sinless God. I tell him that he needs to find “God” and focus on “Him” and not people residing in churches in order to solve his problems and in time if he will put his faith in God, He will lead him to a good church etc. etc.

The last time we talked about it, I looked him in the eye and told him that his way was not working and that he needed to give God’s way a chance. I told him he had nothing to lose because according to his own words, his situation couldn’t get any worse. I do not know that I convinced him. I am going to find a good church in the area and take him to that church with me even if I have to hog tie him the very next time I am in his neck of the woods.

This man is a prime example of why Christians should present themselves and their lives as a good reason for someone who does not know God to want to know God. If all of the Christians he knows are hypocrites and worse than his non-Christian friends, he has no reason to give God a chance in his life and thus miss out on all that is pure and good, peaceful and happy in life. If the Christians that he knows are all enjoying life to the hilt and are happy, it follows that he would want to become a Christian and get in on the fun. Think about your example; is it what it ought to be to convince someone who is not a Christian to want to become one?

Matt. 5:16
Let your life so shine before
men, that they may see your good
works