Lower your cholesterol. Lose some weight. Go to the parent-teacher meetings. Show up to work on time. Get the job done right. Study hard and get good grades. Practice your instrument. Avoid germs. Coach the ball team. Fix supper for the family. Look good. Be nice.

Life is full of expectations; demands seem to stack themselves to the sky. [picapp src=”9/c/7/0/Signs_Of_Recovery_be36.jpg?adImageId=6179071&imageId=6089359″ width=”234″ height=”156″ /]For the most part we acquiesce to whatever we think is necessary for our lives to continue plodding along. We hope that our obedience to the million different “pulls” on our time and energy and resources will somehow result in our happiness or, at very least, convenience.

Then there is God. We tend to approach our relationship with him as an additional set of responsibilities. We behave as if the requirements of our world must first be satisfied then we have to find a way to please God with what we have left. The result is either pervasive frustration or a spirituality that is so lean that it barely survives at all. Either way we come to God complaining what he commands is just too much to ask.

It is.

“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple…So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.” (Luke 14:26-27, 33, NASB95)

My friends at Main Street will be talking about this idea this week. It will be interesting to hear what is decided about the call of Christ.