Walk the Plank!

(Image taken from TechXav)

I don’t know about you, but I get really annoyed by DVDs when I can’t skip straight to the menu. I’m not really interested in all the trailers and commercials and FBI warnings and Interpol warnings and cutesy little animations for every single production company involved with the movie. What’s even worse, now, is that you can’t even fast forward through a lot of that stuff! You go to all the trouble of buying the DVD instead of downloading it, and you can’t just pop it in and watch the movie. Now, if I simply downloaded the movie, I could watch sans all the junk. Not that I’m legitimizing piracy… just want the FBI and Interpol to know that… because I’m not. But, seriously, those who are honest and legal and pay end up being the ones who are penalized.

I couldn’t help but think of how we define what it means to be a Christ-follower. How much of our definitions are simply non-essential annoyances that cause people to seek out a pirated version of God… something seemingly easier? Or even worse, are we giving children a bloated view of what it means to follow God? They accept what we give them because they are trusting and concrete and will believe just about anything we tell them. Then when they are challenged to critically evaluate their belief systems, they realize that there is a lot of unnecessary junk and they, too, go for the pirated versions of God.

I’m not saying that becoming a committed Christ-follower is obstacle free. There is a surrendering of the will that must happen. What I am saying is that we need to help people take steps of faith towards God rather than creating stifling systems that hinder them from encountering God.