Bipartisan. Contemporary or traditional. Social. Centrally located. Organic. Awesome. Nice. What do these words all have in common? Nothing. Literally, they are all nothing. Meaningless. Perhaps at one time they had descriptive value, but they’ve now been stripped of all nuance, left with barely enough grit to connote even the blandest of notions.
If a recently passed bill has bipartisan support, you can be assured that it is less about ideology and more about I’ll-sign-it-if-you-promise-not-to-release-my-twitter-pics-ology. Organic has made its way into the lexicon of both the foodies and emerging church-types. In either case, throw it into any conversation with a group of young hipsters, and you’re automatically part of the in-crowd – but if anyone asks you what that actually means, just roll your eyes with disgust through your non-prescription horned rim glasses as you sip from your green tea frappucino…that’ll shut ‘em up. Describing last night’s blind date as nice? Translation, “His personality is as barren as Minute Maid Park in October.” Mean. Ing. Less.
Topping the charts of feckless chattery, though, is the uber-uttered guarantee. I’d wager that through my life, I’ve been given thousands of guarantees – but have yet to cash in on any of those broken promises. Like the ones I often hear from my favorite QB or point guard, guaranteeing me that a win is in store. Really? So if you can’t back it up, you’ll give me the next 3 ½ hours of my life back?
Sure, my potato chips and deodorant come with money-back guarantees. That is, as long as I type up a page expressing my discontent, parcel up the unused portion, drop it off at the post office, and then wait 8-12 weeks for my $2.37 check. Pretty sure I’ve never had unused portions of chips anyway, no matter how much I hated them. Except for pork rinds. (But don't try to get your money back on pork rinds, because the only thing the pork rind company is going to tell you is, "What did you expect? They're pork rinds.")
Way back when a guarantee was more than a sound bite, it meant “something that assures a particular outcome or condition”. Assurance. It can be trusted. And verified. But because it’s overused and under-delivers, I tend to skate right over it whenever it pops up in my reading. Even when I’m reading scripture.
The apostle Paul reminds us, “And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people.” (Ephesians 1:13-14; emphasis mine)
You may have dismissed this as much as I have, or at least paid it little consideration. But take a moment to re-read that passage. Then read it again. Read it until it alters your thoughts. The finality, the certainty, of this statement crashes in on perhaps the single greatest misconception I have of reality – the misconception that everything after today is unknown.
If you love God and have handed him the reigns of your life, the too-good-to-be-true, but-true-nonetheless, fact is, well…the game’s already over. And we've won. That reality doesn’t give us a pass on living out the rest of our days well, but it should absolutely free us up to shed that pesky and pervasive belief that the confines of this world hold any sway over our present joy.
Just got that promotion? Doesn’t matter. Laid off? Doesn’t matter. Cancer screening came back negative? Great, doesn’t matter. Cracked slab in your foundation? That sucks, but it doesn’t matter. Why? Because any circumstance we encounter in this world - good or bad - has an expiration date only slightly longer than the one on your milk carton. It is the first letter of the first word of the opening sentence on page one of a book that never ends. Sure, it seems like forever, but that’s just because we haven’t yet tasted forever.
The bank may have declared that you now own that F-150 free and clear, but the truth is, you’re still just leasing it. There’s only one thing that is owned free and clear.
And that is you and me.
No comments:
Post a Comment