Tonight a young man in dreadlocks, probably a college kid, came by the house to give his spiel on saving the environment. Now I don’t know about your town, but here in the wonderful creative town of Austin, TX, you can’t throw a rock without hitting one of these guys. But they are nice enough most of the time, and genuinely care about the world God created for us. So I usually give them a few minutes. He explained that with the transition to digital TVs, millions of TV sets will soon be obsolete and headed to the trashdumps. Now I know that you know that you can buy some apparatus which will allow you to continue to use your old rabbit-ear TV from college, but I understand what he meant. He told me about how much lead was in the TV and would soon be in our landfills. I could help just by signing my name. And giving a small donation. In lieu of the donation, I could write two letters to the governor. He would be back to pick them up at 8. I hesitated, but you know, I can write two letters. That doesn’t take that much time and it’s for a good cause. So, I did. I came in, told my wife, she laughed at me, and then I sat down and wrote two letters. I don’t ever write letters. I had to go find envelopes.

Anyway, that got me to thinking about what spurs us into action.  In our Christian lives, our heads know about so much more good to be done than we actually do. I wonder what would spur us on to actually do those things. One of my passions for the last 5 years has been World Vision.  You can learn more about it at www.worldvision.org. But I started sponsoring a little girl in Uganda because my friend Eddie Carswell just walked up and asked me if I had ever considered it. I got involved in a ministry that is now central to what we do simply because someone asked me. I became socially and politically active tonight just because somebody came by the house and asked. So what would it take for us as the church to begin to live out the commands of Christ that we already know and understand?  And what would it take for the world around us to be changed by the truth we are sharing and living?

 “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” Romans 10:14

I wonder what would happen if we were as brave as the young man who came to my house tonight. I wonder what would happen if we believed that God wanted to save a human soul as much as he believed in saving the environment. It is amazing how successful communication can be when we just use our words and tell people. And it’s amazing that we think the truth will spread when we are not the ones sharing it. 

Todd