I have 15 minutes left of the audiobook I’ve been listening to. It has adventure, romance, mystery, action, and suspense, and it is written by a Christian author. I’m just about to figure out if the good guy survived being thrown out of the president’s plane. But the groceries needed ordered, the towels needed to be taken from the washer and put in the drier, and I had to take a call from my mom. Oh, yeah, and in the meantime, I had to email my professor and take another look at my research paper before turning it in. And then there was the post I had to make to the class chat in order to be counted present for the day.
But all I want is to finish the audiobook and find something substancial for lunch. I mean, a bowl of cereal for breakfast only goes so far. And I can’t procrastinate, because I have a meeting this afternoon.
My class discussion this morning got me to thinking about these first world problems of mine. The question was asked, “Why do you think the majority of contemporary American Christians are less interested in missionary work as Christians were 100 years ago?”
It’s easy to say, “I’m busy. I have a job, kids, laundry, school, church, blah blah blah.” But didn’t folks have it hard back in the “good-ole-days”?
Just as a reminder, 100 years ago, electricity was brand new and only in cities and a few towns. Laundry day meant boiling water, wringing out by hand, hanging it out on a clothes line, making your own starch and ironing with a device you heated on a wood or coal stove. Groceries meant you get dressed and go to the store, pick them out, pay for them and cart them home yourself. Schoolwork was accomplished on real paper with pencils, using paper books and blackboards. Having kids meant you probably had 4 or more, you mended their clothes because you didn’t have enough money except for the oldest ones and had to make due with hand-me-downs, sickness meant fear because you probably had already lost one or more to it (antibiotics weren’t common then), and there was no birth control except abstinence. Jobs meant leaving home to work down in coal mines, building a structure while standing on scaffolding, using your brain and/or calculator for numbers, cutting hay, threshing wheat, working in a factory with dangerous machinery, and knowing you were never out of debt . . . Oh, wait, that last part still holds true, I suppose. Anyway, my point is, life was more difficult 100 years ago, and yet they cared more about missions than we seem to today.
Please, don’t comment below and ask if I’m preaching to myself. LOL
I asked my class, “What could underground churches teach us?”
2 Timothy 3:1-4 says, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.”
Hmm. Well, only thing I can say to that is, “Lord, forgive me for taking it all for granted, and please help me love people the way you love them.”
Amen? Amen.
Shannon Wells 