Easy Living

It’s a lot easier to be single than to be married.

It’s even easier to be single if you don’t have any pets. It’s a fact. Your only responsibility in life is to yourself. You wake up and it doesn’t matter how you feel or what you look like. No one there to see you. You come home from work frustrated and aggravated. No one there to kick. You don’t like your boss, your pastor, your small group leader. It’s your problem. You feel moody, don’t want to talk to anyone. You don’t even have to close a door or leave the room. You don’t feel like eating a heavy dinner. Big deal. You want to have cereal again for dinner. Your gain. You feel like reading in bed until 3 in the morning with the music blaring. Go ahead. You want to spend your money on a new iphone. Do it. It’s your money anyway. You don’t feel like making the bed today. Ha. No one there to see it.

And it’s an absolutely completely self centered way of living that is far from the life that Jesus Christ has called us to.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying Christ wanted every man with a woman and every woman with a man. After all, He remained single his 33 years on this earth. And the apostle Paul pushed singleness as a better road (please don’t argue with me on that one!!).

The life of Christ, though, was anything but isolated. He lived with people, talked with people, hurt with people, and gave for people. No wonder God taught us in Proverbs that “he who isolates himself seeks his own desire”.

Life is not meant to be lived alone.

The problem with people is that they are messy. At least I am. Messy and complicated, and difficult to get along with. However hard I try to make them, people just don’t say what I want them to say and they don’t do what I want them to do.

And yet I am called to love them. Sacrificially, completely, uncomfortably, as Christ loved me. And I’m supposed to forgive them absolutely, sacrificially, completely, uncomfortably. Because Christ has forgiven me.

Is it any wonder that Paul spent more time on “One another” commands than any other command? Love one another. Edify one another. Encourage one another. Assemble with one another. Accept one another. Confess your sins to one another. Build one another up. Submit to one another. Serve one another. Pray for one another.  Be kind, be hospitable, honor one another. Be devoted to one another. Bear one another up.

Not an easy calling, but nothing about Christ’s call to us is easy. Nothing worth living for is easy. Nothing worth dying for is easy.

Don’t settle for the easy way out.

Find some people and live life with them. No matter the cost.

It’s the only life worth living.

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