Sitting By The Fire With Jesus

"Jesus changed my life!"

Oh, yeah? How?

Flippancy aside, most people move through the world with Jesus pretty much the way they'd walk without Him.

I don't mean going to church, praying, reading the Bible...those are givens, whatever your faith (and even applicable in their own ways to secular activities, like fishing or golf).

What I'm talking about are concrete ways in which your faith has changed the way you interact with the world. I have a good friend who's gone to South America for mission work...that's certainly a change. One of my sisters-in-law will be cooking Thanksgiving dinner for the Salvation Army.

These seem to be exceptions, though...for most of us, following Christ is really rather private. We go to church, talk with other Christians, listen to and watch Christian media...but would anyone really know we're Christians except for jewelry and bumper stickers? It's a bit silly to ask if we're doing anything that Jesus or one of the Apostles would be doing. Our life and culture is so different that few parallels can be drawn.

But do we do anything that lights the world with the fire our faith should have given us? Is there any practical witnessing that would lead an observer to ask where we get our motivation?

Or is the fire warming a closed room?

Certainly, it's more the cozy room for me. We provide a haven for unwanted dogs, but that's something we'd do anyway. I write Christian novels, and I guess could make the argument that I wouldn't write any novels without the Christian underpinning. But maybe I'd be trying to emulate Mickey Spillane. I don't know.

But that's it. When I thought about this question there was not a lot of 'Christianity in action' in my life. I'm not thrilled to admit that, but it's the truth.

What about you?