“I want you to be smart in the same way—but for what is right—using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior.” Luke 16:9 (MSG)

My daughter, Madison, called last night. She is a poor college student living with three other girls in the Cities. She is working hard at work (ironically, at Bare Escentuals), working hard at school, and learning to walk her own journey on her own [cue: Mary Tyler Moore Theme].

Right now, her daily journies have become more difficult. Her beloved car (a.k.a. Squirt) is dying. In fact, there is an epidemic of car problems among her roomies. They have been sharing one girls car as they all figure out what they are going to do to repair or replace their sputtering vehicles.

“If I have to,” Madison said on the phone, “I can walk to work. It’s a long walk and I’ll freeze my butt off, but I can do it.” [This from the girl who trekked miles into the jungle of Costa Rica using a machette].

How could I not think of her this morning as I read Jesus’ dictate to be on constant alert, looking for angles, and surviving by your wits. Those are life lessons we don’t get in books nor can we absorb them from a lecture. I find it fascinating when people ignorantly believe that being a follower of Jesus is about “complacently getting by on good behavior” when Jesus call was to follow him in the opposite direction.

The journey is frighteningly more adventurous than that.

Related articles

• A New Stretch of the Journey
• Madison’s Home!
• Parable of the Lamp (lovemeanyway.wordpress.com)
• The Christmas Child And God (samuelatgilgal.wordpress.com)