You Could Use the Exercise, Really.

"He prays to find a man to blame for every sleepless night he spends, and for every well that he warned me of-- but wound up falling in."

A few days back I went to the library in between classes. As I was driving around, looking for an empty parking space (of which there were none close by--the library really picked a bad location if they wanted anyone to actually come there), I passed by the side of a church. Which church it was is no matter-- what caught my eye as I drove by was the sign on the building that said something roughly along the lines of this:

NO PARKING EXCEPT STAFF MEMBERS
ANY VIOLATERS WILL BE TOWED AT OWNER'S EXPENSE
OR BLOCKED TO KEEP FROM LEAVING

At first, I didn't even think about it. There are signs similar to that literally all over downtown. And then something struck me... That was on the building of a church.

Wait, what?

And I thought, huh. Wow. If Christians aren't even willing to give up our parking spots to innocent (or even not-so-innocent) bystanders, then what does that say about our willingness to give anything? What does that say about our love for Jesus? Why would we serve the poor if we can't even give up our parking spot? Or, if we do serve the poor, isn't that just a form of hypocrisy?
Now that's a lot of questions that might sound like accusations, or like I'm taking the implications of this too far. Although I'm not accusing anyone at this church, I don't think this is too far to take the line of logic here.

When Jesus called us to be humble, when He called us to serve, I don't think that He was kidding. And I don't think that He meant only in the big things.
I think that I honestly believe it is wrong for a Christian to be unwilling to give up a parking spot.
Now, I realize that I am severely uninformed in this specific situation, as I just drove by and saw the sign one day. Its not like I know what's all going on. But still... Even seeing that sign sort of turns me off to Christians... And I am one!
Even in the small things, we are called to be faithful and above reproach. Even if that means an inconvenience for us.

I intend to try to live my life serving other people in every area, not just the big ones. If that means parking two blocks away from work every day, well so be it. Hey, I could use the exercise anyway.

Christ calls us to be witnesses with every action in our lives, not just our speech.

I don't know; this just struck me when I saw that sign. Random ramblings.

vanessa ((