Commitment

I was trying to make my way to the music store from the hospital in Augusta last week. Isn’t it strange how you can go by the same buildings many times, but never really notice what’s there? On this particular day I was noticing things to my left when something caught my eye.

There was a very small store on the side of the road. It was not only small, but it was also very dilapidated. The wood siding on the front was buckled and faded, and the windows were covered in dust. The oddest thing was that it was occupied.

Hand-painted in black on the front of the little building were the words, “TV/VCR REPAIR”. There was an old car parked in front and the door was standing open. I didn’t go inside to see if it really was a repair shop, but I assumed the writing on the wall to be correct.

How much business do you think this person gets? When a television or VCR stops working how many of us send it somewhere to be repaired? Even if we do consider repairing it, we usually take it to the store where we bought it, instead of taking it to someone who strictly does repairs.

I remember getting a television of my very own back in the early 70’s. We placed it on the dresser in my room. Since the dresser was dusted twice per week and polished once per week, it was pretty slick. As I came into the room they day after I got the TV, I bumped it. It slid all the way to the end of the dresser and crashed to the floor.

Today, you might just take it back to the store where you bought it and get another one. Back then we just took it to a little repair shop in Greer, and it was fixed within a few days. It was the same TV, but with a new picture tube. It worked great for years.

The battery is not working on my cell phone. It will probably cost more to repair it than to buy a new phone, so I get to keep this one as a souvenir. Our society has become such a disposable one. Very few things get repaired. We sometimes seek opportunities to obtain something new rather than try to address the problems with the old.

I saw a Hyundai commercial during Monday Night Football that made me think about the way we throw away things when they are not perfect. The voiceover on the commercial says;

Instant gratification has us in a stranglehold.
So much so, that we don’t want to fix things anymore. We just replace them.
Don’t like your nose? Get a new one.
Don’t like your job? Get a new one.
Don’t like your spouse? Well, get a new one.
Whatever happened to commitment? To standing by our decisions?

This applies to our spiritual lives also. If your church has problems, find a new one. If God doesn’t give you everything you want, get a new one. We want to throw out what we don’t like about God’s word, and serving Him so that we may keep and embrace the things that make us feel good.

Living the Christian life is certainly not about instant gratification. It is about cultivating a relationship with our Heavenly Father. No relationship is created or maintained without commitment. The level of commitment to our vehicle, TV, spouse, or anything else on this earth only has temporal consequences. Our commitment to Christ dictates our eternity.

Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods. (Joshua 24:14-16)