Our Friend Chi Chi
This past
weekend Jack had a friend from school with him. His name is Chi Chi. Chi Chi is a stuffed gorilla who goes home
with different kids from his class each weekend. On Sunday evening you write a
short report about what the class pet did with your family during his stay. It
was a relatively normal weekend for us. Jack had a basketball game, we played
in the snow for a bit, goofed off around the house, went to church, and so
on.
But, here’s something that I found
funny about the weekend. Having Chi Chi, a stuffed gorilla, made me just a bit
more aware of how we spent our time. I didn’t care what Chi Chi thought. He has stuffing for brains (sorry Jack, I
hope that didn’t hurt your feelings).
However, I was very aware of what Jack’s teacher and class would think
about our weekend. For whatever reason, I just felt like it would be underwhelming
for Jack’s friends to hear that Chi Chi watched Jack play his DS and play in
the snow. So, we made sure we did a few
extra things. Not big things, but just slightly different than normal. We built
a tent in the play room (Chi Chi is guarding the tent in the picture above),
the kids had ice cream for dinner one night (Valentine’s Day special) and we
let Chi Chi camp on the floor in Jack’s room. It wasn’t anything overly big in
the end, but I was definitely more aware of our actions than normal.
So, what’s
the point? How different would we live life if we knew we had an audience?
Would we allow ourselves to waste as much time? Would we go the same places as
normal and have all the same priorities? Or, would we find ways to be
“impressive”? Now, don’t misconstrue what I’m saying. I don’t want you to think
that we need to do things in such a way that draws attention to ourselves.
Actually, it’s quite the opposite. In a Spirit-led life, we are called to do
things that bring honor to God. To do so, we worship God, love Him with all we
have, and love those around us (Mark 12:29-31). And, in fact, we do have an
audience each day. One of the awesome things about being a follower of God is
the fact that he chooses to dwell in each of us through his Spirit (John
14:15-18). Not only is God our audience, but He is the director of our time
when we allow him to take the reins.
Knowing
those two things, doesn’t that give us a responsibility to live out a life that
really matters? It doesn’t mean that we always have to do the “amazing,” it
means that we are called to walk daily with the One who IS amazing. It means
that we are called to do the little things each day that reflect how Jesus
would engage a situation. It means that each action we take should be one that
honors God in a genuine way. It means that if someone followed us throughout
the course of a day they would know that our priority is to be an ambassador to
bring God’s grace and hope into this world. I guess, at the end of the day, we
should live in a way that would impress Chi Chi without doing anything out of
the ordinary because our ordinary is all about Kingdom Business!
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