Following Jesus (a lesson learned from two burning butts)

Some of the most interesting conversations I had on the cruise were with believers that felt bad enough about what they were doing that they tried to justify their lives to me... as if I had any ability to make any real judgment calls on their behalf. The guy I met at the bar, for instance, nearly burnt his shorts off as he moved his cigarette behind his back as soon as he asked me what I did for a living and I responded by saying I was a "pastor". I'm not sure why he felt it necessary to put himself at such risk for physical harm just because he was talking to a professional Christian... besides, the smoke rising from his butt made it look like he had a little too much wasabi at the sushi bar. And he was not the only one to quickly change his behavior once they found out I was a pastor. What's up with that?

Sometimes I wonder if people are more concerned about following Jesus on a day by day basis, or more concerned about making sure that "a man of God" does not look down on them with condemnation. Have we forgotten that as believers, we are all "men" or "women" "of God"? Do we honestly think that God does not watch our lives very closely and, as a result, has to rely on ministers to tattle on people? Who are we really concerned about living for?... some ordinary guy with a religious title that we meet while on a six day cruise?... or the creator of everything that gave up everything so that he could spend eternity in a relationship with us?

God sees... he sees everything... all the time... and he is the only one we have to please... living just to please the people around us is unnatural, uncomfortable, impossible, hypocritical, and pointless. And, unfortunately, the only people that spend so much time doing it are believers. The nonbelievers I met on the cruise didn't care about trying to "impress" me or justify themselves to me... and that was refreshing. Trust me, it's much more relaxing to lose $2 in the penny slots beside a nonbeliever that doesn't care about impressing you, than it is to order a virgin margarita beside a believer doing a cigarette contortionist act because he thinks you are going to tell God what he's doing. If you are living life to try to impress anyone but God... stop it... it's not working... and it doesn't help you follow Jesus.