Impulsiveness

As you can probably tell, I enjoy an occasional cigar--good cigar, and one of my temptations is going onto JR Cigar's web site, specifically to the auction department, to bid on a box of my favorites--Nat Sherman's Host Selection. Well, last night after a long day, and while I was waiting on the Wednesday night Bible Study group to gather, I succumbed to the temptation and, amazingly, found a $100 box of my favorites on the bidding block, with the highest bid at only $55 and only 19 minutes left for bidding! Now the temptation really increased, almost to the lusting department! I tried my best NOT to place a bid but I got the "couldn't-help-its" and made my bid--$56! (I must admit that I cut my odds a bit by waiting until about five seconds before the bidding time was up.) Anyway, I won (or lost, depending on how you look at it) and will soon be receiving a full box of 25 Nat Sherman cigars (36 X 8)! To tell you the truth, it will take me forever to smoke that many cigars, so I will have to give some to my stogey smoking buddy, Bobby Olsen and my favorite grave digger, Jack.

There is another side of this story that you should know. Our medical insurance provider (State Health Benefit Plan) adds a $40 per month surcharge to the premium of those who have used any tobacco product in the past twelve months, so guess what: we get to pay that premium! Now the way I figure it (if my math is correct and it usually is) by the time I give some of the cigars away, leaving a few for me to smoke over the next year, each cigar will have cost me about $45! Now that is a deal!

Now that I have your attention, allow me to make my point: how many times in your life have you on impulse "closed a deal" that looked good (really good) on the surface but proved to be about as foolish (if not much more) than the one I just described? Take marriage, for example: almost everyone I know (everyone, in fact) "closed the deal" on marriage thinking they had just made the deal of a lifetime but . . . but someone failed to tell them about the surcharges that come with the deal. Oh, it doesn't take long before reality sets in and when it does--WOW!

I think Jacob knew something about this when he first saw Rachael and thought he was about to make the deal of his lifetime, only to learn that the surcharges were extremely high. Even so, she was worth the cost to him because he loved her, so he plowed ahead eagerly waiting for the "bidding time" to end, so he could have the "girl of his dreams." As you remember, things got worse (actually, much worse) because when he was finally able to "close the deal of his lifetime" and marry Rachael, he woke up the next morning wondering, "Who is this woman?" Rather than marrying Rachael, he had been deceived and wound up with Leah, and for him there was a major difference, a difference that upped the surcharges considerably!

Christianity is, surely, the deal of a lifetime; nothing can compare or compete with it. However, I must tell you that no one ever told me about the surcharges that accompany the deal. (I am not trying to be irreverent, just honest.) I honestly think that had I known what I now know, I would not have been quite as eager to "join the ranks" of God's army.

You see, no one ever told me how the system really works (die in order to live; give in order to receive; forgive in order to be forgiven; broken in order to be healed; poured out in order to pour out; shipwrecked before smoothe sailing, rods before obedience, crosses before life) so I assumed that once I "got it all right" my life would be, well, "hunky dorey" and "getting it all right" did not appear to be that big of a deal. Why there were only ten rules and, surely, I could obey them.

When I "became a Christian," I honestly thought I had closed on the deal of a lifetime, and I had but it takes a whole lot of living and even more sinning before the "Polaroid" print develops and you, actually, see the true picture. Even then, you sometimes wonder if it is really worth it?

Of this I am convinced: the Christian life, as it is presented today, is a far cry from what it was in Jesus mind, when He walked the dusty roads of Israel, among the "apples of His Father's eyes." It is now obvious, at least to me, that God has one thing in mind and only one thing and it has nothing to do with my (or your) happiness or pleasure; instead, it has to do with His being glorified in and through our weaknesses because it is our weaknesses that drive us to Jesus. I know: this sounds like God has a "sick" personality but when YOU see (really see) the truth, what is now so hard and so distasteful, will in the end prove to be "a land flowing with milk and honey!" His deals really are the deals of a lifetime!

Oh well, I just thought I would tell you what He told me~