GRITS

One of my favorite stories is of a "northerner" who visits some café in Louisiana. He sees grits in a prominent place on the menu and asks the waitress, "What is a grit?" In a slow southern drawl, with a heavy dose of twang, she retorted, "Grit??? They're grits!! They don't come by themselves." I love it. Maybe it's because I think I've met that server somewhere in Shreveport, Louisiana.

I heard a famous "Christian" comedian lamenting over meet and greet in churches. "Don't want to shake someone's sweaty hand that I don't know." Lots of jabs and laughs followed. After listening for awhile, it seemed to me that he would be happy if he never had to be anywhere but on stage or in his basement home theater. Not sure how much he'll like heaven if he's so opposed to being around people different than himself.

To quote the southern advisor, "Grits don't come by themselves." And neither do Christians. The idea of being a Christian but "not the church-going type" isn't compatible with the NT. Yeah, I know "church is not a building" (Don't write me on that one. I've heard the argument.) But Christianity isn't a solo endeavor either. Check it out. When the Spirit came, He motivated the first believers to devote themselves to meeting in the temple and in homes (Acts 2:40-47). Whether you prefer a house church or a church of thousands with small groups, get in one and be part of the solution.

START ON TUESDAY

When my wife and I built our home and moved in, we went through the phase that everyone goes through: the phase of now and later. We decided the things we must have now: the bed, some clothes, the toiletries, the microwave, the flipflops, the robe and my workboots. The later? Those were things like pictures on the wall, stuff on the shelves, organizing the garage, box of DVD's, etc.

But we wanted to have friends over, to celebrate family birthdays, hold our small group and have houseguests. But...there were those undone things: the boxes still on the floor, the pictures not on the wall, the towel rod in the guest bathroom. We found ourselves saying, "We can have out-of-town guests after the boxes are unpacked...after the pictures are up...after the garage is organized...after the landscaping is finished. Months later, we decided together to quit living in the "afters" and start living now. So what if the boxes were unpacked and the basement wasn't finished.? We love people more than appearances!

Have you put off joy? Maybe you find yourself saying a lot of "afters"...
...after the kids are in school, I'll start my workouts
...after the kids are on break, we'll go camping
...after the kids graduate, I'll start a small group study
...after the holidays, I'll re-start my prayer time
...after we retire, we'll go see those old friends
...after I get through this week, then I'll start next Monday.

Break the trend! Why not start on Tuesday?