I don't want to go to the doctor today, tomorrow or...ever

It may be a male thing but I am not sure. I do know I cannot remember ever wanting to visit my local MD. I do have a couple of friends who are doctors but all I want to do with them is have coffee. What is this about? Well, they may want to examine my life up close. They may find something I think I already know but their pronouncement of it brings reality too close.

Not only do we usually not like close examinations of our medical condition but often we do not want those who do not know Jesus yet to look too closely at our life...especially during difficult times in our lives.

James 1:2-3 in the Message "Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely."

You and I have the opportunity to show the world a different way of doing life. God uses these tests in our life to reveal to those who live close to us or who work with us that there is a way of living that looks very different from what they are used to. But the trick is we must respond to these situations in a way that shows we believe God is not sleeping but is in control of everything we experience. He allows some and engineers some of the things we experience.

In order for God to be visible in our life to those without Jesus however, we must be close to them. We cannot feed hungry people, clothe them or visit them from a distance. We must live close for them to examine our lives-kind of like going to a doctor.

There is a commercial I have seen about an electric company that is looking for someone in a remote area of the world and the person in this area is waiting for them. Their comment when the company finds them is "We've been waiting." The world you and I live in is also waiting for Jesus to show up in our life so they can live as God intended them to live.

Is anyone asking you and me questions about why we respond to challenging stuff in such a different way than they do?
Do we want them to ask? Are we responding differently?
What do you and I need to believe about God and his involvement in our lives that we are not presently believing?

THINK ABOUT THIS: People are starving for answers.
Faith is never tested in the Christian bubble.