Have you ever been so busy that you started looking for shortcuts? I remember in college when it came time for final exams and final papers some of my friends, (yes and me too), started looking at their grades and where they stood in each class. I had a one friend in particular, you know the one who just has to look at the book to pass the test and not really open it and read it. I always envied him and others who could skim through heavy reading in 30min that took me 2 or 3 hours to understand. This particular friend would look at his grades and decide what would be the fewest amount of questions he would have to answer on the final and still get an A in the class. Of course he would take into consideration the probability of getting each question right and factor in the difficulty of the class...Did I mention he was a math major? For me though it was a no brainer, I had to take and finish the entire exam. My look for shortcuts usually came with the papers. Trying to decide how I can say what needs said in the fewest amount of pages possible. This is mostly because I am afflicted with two very serious flaws when it comes to this. I tend to be very wordy and talk a lot, shocker right? I also procrastinate. Surprisingly some of my best papers ended up being written at 2am the night/morning it was due.
We've all looked for shortcuts in some ways and at some times. Jesus was approached by a teacher of the law who asked Him what the greatest commandment in the law was. He did this to test Him. Jesus' answer is so great. He took the ten commandments and all the extra stuff the Jews had piled on and summed it all up into two statements. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. I'm thinking why couldn't some of the authors of my text books in college have done that? Summed all of what they had to say to just the most important.
Jesus set the bar. He told us what the most important commandment was and what the second was. All we have to do is love God with all we have and love our neighbor as yourself. Simple right? It may sound so but how many things do we spend more time with each week than we do with our relationship with God and how many of us really love others as we love yourself? Whenever we think we have this down pat its time to take a long hard look in the mirror and at what Jesus said about who our neighbor is.
When you think about how you spend your time through the week and think about the people in your life who are hardest to love. What are the things you feel challenged to change?
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