Dexter Iowa Community Site

Consider this quote from Abe Lincoln

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

I was sitting in church this Sunday morning thinking about what the Easter holiday really meant and if I was living up to the gift that Christ gave to me on that cross. Unless you are a philosophy major or a very deep thinker it is probably hard enough to fathom the events that surrounded the meaning of the crucifixion, especially if you try to put yourself into the place of Jesus and wonder if you would have acted the same way.

On the oft chance that I comprehend the message of Easter well enough to understand what HE gave each one of us that day, I started to wonder if I was living up to that gift and indeed if I was letting my Christianity shine through my daily life. I’ve never been one of those people who felt the need to walk up to strangers and start preaching the word, although it never has been an issue in the written word, or show up on someone’s doorstep and decide to have a conversation about my personal relationship with God. There isn’t anything wrong with that, if that is your thing, but it just isn’t me.

But thinking about the Easter gift, here is someone who knew me before I was born, and yet HE died on the cross for my sins, to repay that debt. He did so knowing the person I would be, and the failures I would have in life. Unfortunately he knew me better than I knew myself and knew that there would be moments in my life where taking responsibility for my actions wasn’t something I was really keen on doing. It was much easier to hide from the hard things and hope that they go away on their own. As everyone learns, life doesn’t work that way and eventually you realize that the path you are going down was the wrong one.

Like anyone else I fail more times than I succeed in following in the steps of Jesus. I can be short tempered, stubborn (which I’m told is a family trait), leery of drama and still carry a grudge that I don’t intend to rid myself of anytime soon. But throughout all my failures, I continue to try which probably is a much larger part of being successful than we realize.

Maybe we forget the small things we could be doing because we are too focused on the big picture, or the goal at the end? I’ve been told that I’m too nice sometimes, which ironically would explain the number of times I get thrown into the friend zone with women. But isn’t that the place to start? A moment of kindness, or even a thank you with the cashier who rang up your morning doughnut; taking that extra moment to wave on a fellow motorist at the four way stop or even a kind word or helping hand to a co-worker might be a great place to start. If just one other person passed along that same kindness wouldn’t the world around us be a much better place?

If I continue to work on that maybe I’ll be just a step closer to being worthy of the gift of the cross, and who knows, maybe then I’ll have time to work on keeping my house clean. See you next week, remember, we’re all in this together.