Join
with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a
soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his
commanding officer. Similarly, anyone who competes as an athlete
does not receive the victor’s crown except by competing according to the
rules. The hardworking farmer should be the first
to receive a share of the crops. Reflect on what I
am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this. (II Timothy 2:3-7)
This is the problem I face. This is
my definition of commitment. I think black and white. I live gray. I suspect
most people live “grayer” lives than the want to, or think they do. Another
problem with this is the fact that seemingly everyone else expects you to live
this way. Employers ask for one-hundred and ten percent. Even when you aren’t
at work, you’re supposed to be “at work.” Social organizations (including
Church) want you to be there whenever the doors are open and be engaged on
their behalf. Commitment – they all want emotional, active commitment. This is
understandable. Organizations live or die based on what their membership does.
God expects no less of us than
they do, but life isn’t as simple as I think it needs to be to accomplish and maintain
this level of commitment. It takes a lot of focus and concentration. Soldiers,
athletes, and farmers tend to have teams of people who handle day-to-day
affairs. In fact, military families are told that they should never even
suggest that things aren’t perfectly happy at home.
Such commitment is hard in black and
white. It’s one of the challenges I’m facing now. Do I commit myself to the
communities I’m living in for half of each year? What does that mean? One of
the things I think it means is that I’m not allowed to run away when I face difficulty
within a community. That’s my automatic response, and it’s the reason I had to
set a rule for myself with writing that I am not permitted to stop writing
until or unless someone I respect, who knows something about writing, reads
what I’ve written and tells me to stop.
This is what Paul has been talking
about. He was Timothy’s mentor, and Timothy was not to give up on doing what he
was doing – even if it meant suffering – until or unless Paul or God told him
to. We need that outside, objective perspective because it’s too easy to run
away otherwise. Soldiers have their commanding officers. Athletes have the
judges and the rules, and hardworking farmers are the only kind of farmer who
is going to get a good crop. It all comes down to keeping the main thing the
main thing. That may require cutting back on other things that aren’t bad but get
in the way of the thing to which you’ve committed yourself.
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