I’m in Texas interviewing a music minister.  It doesn’t really matter where, so I won’t tell you to protect him.  In a period of ten minutes I saw two things of great importance to our church.  The first will be the subject of this blog and the other the subject of the next. 

             I finished the interview and didn’t feel like going to a restaurant, so I went to a grocery store to get some sushi.  In the checkout line a young man in a proudly tattered CAT cap was buying a bag of organic salad greens, a loaf of white bread, and a big bag of Doritos.  This young man looked more the Doritos and white bread type to me rather than the Rosewood natural foods type.  Was this inconsistent fare his idea of a balanced diet – two tasty but not so nutritious items balanced by one very nutritious one?  The problem is you can’t balance white bread with anything.  (On second thought, maybe with Jif.) 

             Consistency of diet may not be that important to this young man, but consistency in the Christian life is to our church and to you.  You can’t balance harsh words with kind ones or thoughtlessness with thoughtiness (as my dad used to say).   You may think everybody is watching us, but the truth is the world has given up on expecting much from us Christians.  We have said, “We’re only human,” and they believe us.  In fact, they don’t see much difference between them and us and wonder what all the hullabaloo is we make about our Savior.  Will we get consistent in honoring God so that our failures hurt our own hearts before they hurt our witness?

                                                                                                      Ever been to Ridgeway, S.C.?  On Main Street there’s an old general store a friend of mine told me about.  I went up there because I wanted to see such a store.  While I was there, I bought a pair of overalls because I thought they would make a perfect souvenir from an old country store.  The store turned out to be as neat as I had hoped – unpainted, unvarnished floors, an old skylight, shelves full of every imaginable item of clothing, farm implement, and kitchenware. It was a lot like a museum where everything was for sale.  I’ve never forgotten it.

            Years later a man named John Ruff joined our church and mentioned he was from Ridgeway.  I started talking about this store and he said, “That’s my store.  It’s been in my family forever.  Come back and I’ll show you around.”  I took him up on it.  Back in the warehouse of the store I ran across a seed rack that he said was from the 1800’s.  Think of that.  Tomato seeds, turnip seeds, watermelon seeds all sitting around with perfect potential but never producing anything.  As the Lord Jesus said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies it will bear much fruit” (John 12:24).  We have the seeds of the Gospel in our Bibles and, if we are converted, in our hearts, souls, and minds.  At the end of your life will the seed God has placed in your life look like Mr. Ruff’s seed rack – interesting, old, and unused – or will it look like well used, sown, and multiplied sources of joy in eternal life in the lives of the people with whom you shared them?