A Drive-Thru Faith
We've all done it. I'm sure I'm not the only one. After all, in this "hurry up, instant information" world it's easy to fall victim to it. Isn't convenience and ease something to celebrate? So, when we are extremely busy, it's vital that we find solutions to keep our busyness intact. We need not miss a thing, right? But busyness has a way of making us forgetful.
Our schedules become so busy that, when it's time to move from one event to the next, we're so busy that we forget to eat! "Do we even have time to eat?" we think. And gratefully, there is a fast food restaurant on the way to our next appointment. We pull our car around to the drive-thru. We wait (impatiently). We check our watches. We calculate our mileage to determine if we'll make our meeting in time. We take a deep breath. We take another deep breath. We remember to ask our children what they'd like to eat. They inform us of their decision. Then we order by speaking into a large, digital screen and the voice on the other side eventually tells us our total cost and asks us to please drive around.
Now, we put our car in park, so that we can look for loose change, or even easier (and faster) a debit/credit card. "There it is!" we exclaim and hope that the two cars in front of us haven't placed large orders. After all, the clock is tickin'! We reach the first window. The server takes our method of payment. A receipt is handed to us, along with our change or debit/credit card, and we're off to the next window. At long last, our food is handed to us, distributed to our family members, and the next item of busyness is finding the fastest, yet safest way out of the crowded parking lot in order to hit the main thoroughfare.
And you know what? We make the appointment on time...hooray! And, get this...our stomachs are full! So everyone's happy...right?
Right?
Recently, I was taking Finleigh to a local VBS, and though we weren't in a rush, we drove through a McDonald's to get a couple of sausage biscuits and some apples, along with a small water. When I received the food from the drive-thru attendant, I gave Fin her food and we celebrated how we both enjoy a good sausage biscuit. And then, as I pulled up to the traffic light, the following comment came out of my daughter's mouth:
"We're just fast-food Christians!"
Wow. First, I experienced a brief, self-imposed indictment on my many drive-thru moments with Finleigh, but then I heard the comment from a spiritual perspective. Perhaps you experienced it too when you read her comment.
Doesn't faith sometimes seem like a drive-thru experience? Don't we suffer from being fast-food Christians?
I confess that many weeks I can get lazy, "go through the motions," prepare sermons and studies, and spend time praying and worshiping on Sundays and Wednesdays (and here and there throughout the week), talking to God inconsistently and missing out on that relationship...one that gives time for honest reflection, meditation, and transparency. I would venture to say that many of us can get into a rut and keep our schedules full of "stuff," treating our relationship with God like driving through a fast food restaurant. What is it about this illustration that is so true about Christians today, and how do we slow down enough to honor and glorify our God who is not just worthy of worship but worthy of our time?
Perhaps we need to stop living in the margins. Dr. Michael Cogdill (former dean of Campbell Divinity School) used to tell us, as students, that it's important for ministers to subtract--take out those margin items that make way for focus on what truly matters, what fills our souls, and what builds God's earthly Kingdom. This is easier to read then to enact, as it's very difficult to give up things, events, appointments and extra-curricular moments in order that God becomes priority number one. It's so true--when we forget to slow down, just enough to recognize God is Lord of all, we are reminded that this life is not about us, and that is wanting to share his heart and his will with us all throughout our days, not just when we can fit him into our busy schedules.
Many Christians through the years have loved Ps. 46:10, which reads: "Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations." Everyone gets an equal 24 hours in the day. There indeed is time to stop, listen to our breathing, and meditate on God's voice. What are you wanting me to hear, God? What sin have I committed or omitted that needs to be confessed? How can I know your will for me today? Who needs to know of your love, and how can I trust you in all of my relationships, work and rest? Sometimes, slowing down, getting out of the proverbial "drive-thru" lane and walking into the restaurant (so to speak), affords you the opportunity to pause, thank God for the food he provides in the love of his Son, and then take that spiritual energy into the world where we honor him in our Sunday and Wednesday worship, our work and our times of play.
It's easy to want to pick what parts of our relationship with God we want to enjoy, and leave others "still on the menu." But God wants us to FULLY enjoy him! He doesn't want us to only get a "quick bite," he wants us to slow down, engage him honestly, and be filled with his love and his grace and his mercy. When we live as fast-food Christians, only dieting on the basics of our faith and forgetting to grow more profoundly into God's heart, we end up becoming spiritually unbalanced, just as we can become nutritionally unbalanced by constantly eating fast food.
He tells us to slow down and acknowledge, learn, and know that he alone is sovereign, in charge, and able to do "...immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever, amen!" (Eph. 3:20:21, NIV).
Summer is a time to slow down, cool off, and rest. It's a time to subtract those things that keep us from enjoying the full meal of a God whose food truly fills. After all, Paul says in Eph. 5:18b: "Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit." Take the time to pause, breathe, and ask God to fill your empty soul.
The next time you are driving through a fast-food restaurant, consider Jesus. Know that he is with you in the drive-thru line, and that he doesn't condemn you. Just tell him he is Lord, that you love him, and you thank him for saving your soul through Christ, and to keep you safe so that you might serve him with the help of his Holy Spirit. Who knows? Maybe driving through the line for fast food might help you slow down enough to "chew slowly" on the food that is Jesus Christ...our Savior, our Lord and our Friend!
So, let's be still and "taste and see that the Lord is good" (Ps. 34:8a, NIV).
Seeking to slow down in order to "chew on" the grace of God in Christ Jesus,
><> Pastor Will <><
John 3:30