Not A Fan.

Let me make this very clear.  This blog is not filled with words of my own.  And in order to avoid plagiarism charges I want to totally upfront that I did NOT write the following paragraph.  And I did not get prior permission from the publisher.  However, I thought it was such a great analogy I wanted to share it with the rest of you.  actually this little paragraph has completely changed the way I want to live my life.

Taken from "Not A Fan" by Kyle Idleman:

Imagine that my family goes on a mission trip for a month and we have a young married couple come and house sit for us.  Before we leave I give them a notebook with 10-12 pages of fairly detailed instructions for taking care of the house and pets.  I tell them when to water the plants.   I write out where to find the food for the car and how much food to give it.  I remind them to get the mail. I explain the trash day is early on Thursday morning.  I inform them that the downstairs toilet overflows and clearly state where the shut-off valve is just in case.  When I give them the notebook the couple commits to doing what it says.  

Now I want you to imagine that I come back and all the plants are dead. The garbage is full of trash.  The toilet has been overflowing for days and the basement is flooded.  Then I look in the backyard and the is a little graveside where the cat has been buried.

Then the couple who has been house sitting comes up and explains how helpful the notebook was.  In fact they have memorized certain sections and I can see where they have highlighted different areas.  They inform me that they went over parts of the notebook every night before going to bed.  

What an I going to say?  I am going to say, "Away form me you evil doers!"  They may have spoken words of commitment, but there is no evidence that those words meant anything.

Let me quote from another Book:  "  What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds?  Can such a faith save him?"  (James 2:14)

I, for one, need to be more interested in doing what the Book says than highlighting sections of it.  How about you?  Let's look forward to the day we hear our Creator say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."