I’ll Have That To Go Please

In our instant society we rarely have the time or take the time to sit down and eat together. We have “too much on our plate” to sit still for more than ten or fifteen minutes. Even in the “sit down” restaurants there are always to take it to our houses and eat it there. There is “Car-Side To Go”, “Curb-Side To Go”, the normal “Drive-Thru”. If the drive thru is backed up you can always go inside and ask for it to go. Slogans develop for these methods, “Have it your way”, and if you’re old enough, “Takehomeasack”. One of our normal eating places is “behind-the-wheel”, and that is located wherever our GPS tells us we are. Should we not be more concerned about when and where we eat?

Is it not the same with our spiritual life? “Hey Jesus, could I get that to go, I really don’t have time to sit with you for very long, I’m really, really busy.” To get to know someone, you need to spend time with them. When you spend time with someone you get to understand them and what is important to them. You learn more about their personality and the way they think. You begin to understand their passion.

Let’s say, you’re at work and your boss wants to have a meeting to discuss a new product line or a new process for that product line. You go in, pen in hand, and pay close attention, take notes, ask questions. You do this in order to go back to your work station or office and prepare to relay these ideas and changes to your co-workers. What if you told your boss, in about ten minutes, “Hey, I’m really busy and I have other work to do, I’ll catch up with you later and we can finish this.” You just wouldn’t do that… would you?” Your boss knows what you have to do and is concerned about developing the entire company and you are just a small part of the entire process. In essence, he is saying, “Here is how I want you to develop and build your part of the company, and this is a very important part of the finished product.”

Is that how we are responding to Jesus? He is offering us a part in the process and development of building His church and we are saying to Him, “I’m really busy and I can’t put in that much time to “Your” project right now.” First of all I would say that we have not spent enough time with our “Boss” to find out Who He is, and what His passions are.

Then there is the matter of execution. If we have spent time with Him, how do we execute the task He has given us? Let’s take for example, Jesus’ words in Matthew 28:18-20, All authority has been given to me in heaven and earth, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I command you; and remember, I am with you, even to the ends of the earth.”

According to a friend, Keith Green, in a song about this passage, he writes, “Jesus commands us to go, it should be the exception if we stay; It’s now wonder we’re moving so slow, when God’s children, refuse to obey, feeling so called to stay”. “But, I’m too young… I’m too old… I’ve got these bills… I’m not healthy enough… I don’t have enough training….” Remember, He is the one in charge of this company and He sees the bigger picture and knows the final product. He just wants you to be the part of something really big and really great. He just wants you to do your seemingly small part. Going doesn’t necessarily mean “around the world”. It could mean “across the street”.

In the book of Acts, chapter 1, verse 8 we are told to be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the remotest parts of the earth. The old saying goes like this, “Grow where you’re planted” and I add, “If someone uproots you and plants you somewhere else, grow there”. Another song just came to mind by the group First Call, the main line or chorus goes like this, “We may not know what the future holds, but we know Who holds the future”.

This Christian life is not for the faint of heart. It is for the one who has a “child-like” faith and is willing to say “Yes” to the One Who is worthy. This life is not a “bed of roses” and don’t let anyone tell you it is.

Will you tell Jesus, “I’ll have mine, ‘to go’, meaning, yes I will go, across the street or around the world”.

Following the Shepherd,
Ron