Working at a low paying job is not convenient but it pays the bills.
Having restaurants and stores open on Sundays has become a 'convenience' that most cannot do without.
Yet, I do know of a few establishments that are closed on Sunday.
They still make a huge profit.
Their employees are quite satisfied and their satisfaction translates into good customer relations.
Is life ever convenient?
The book of Ecclesiastes says there is a time to live and a time to die.
There is a time for everything under the sun.
There may be a time for everything but is it a convenient time?
Are we able to control enough of our lives that we create a hedge of convenience around us?
Maybe.
How boring!
Creativity most likely bursts out of inconvenience.
One can truly understand the peace that passes all understanding when inconvenience reigns and convenience is quenched.
The heart and mind and soul cannot work together if they rely on convenience.
When is the best time to feed the mind?
By feeding the mind, the heart is fed.
Passion for what the mind absorbs fills the heart.
When this passion consumes us, it might lead us to immense joy or total disaster.
Some passions of the mind focus on the convenience of our wants, our desires.
I want what I want and I want it now.
It's mine, all mine.
This is my life and I will control it according to the conveniences I choose to establish for myself.
All inconvenience will be dashed from my sight.
Study and hard work are inconvenient.
Following through with a creative idea that brings positive solutions takes hard work.
Living a life that sees beyond oneself is inconvenient.
Taking time for others, to help others grow strong and steady is difficult and very inconvenient.
Jesus' faithful, focused, resolute life as one with the Father was inconvenient.
Jesus' choice to follow the purpose of the Father and die a horrific death on the cross was an inconvenience.
Jesus gift to us of eternal life for all who believe in him may not be inconvenient but our obligation in receiving this gift might be inconvenient.
We are commanded to 'take up our cross and follow Him, Jesus . . . God:Father, Son and Holy Spirit."
That's where it gets inconvenient.
We who call ourselves Christian must be willing to live inconvenient lives.
We are called to seek, ask, find . . . continuously . . . for eternity . . . to remain connected to God through His Son. . . . to believe in His every word . . . to confess our sins and to live as Jesus lived . . . inconveniently.
Jesus entered Jerusalem in triumph, greeted by palms and praises and JOY!
Within days, as Jesus well knew would happen, he was arrested, falsely accused, flogged almost to death and then nailed to a cross.
I wonder.
Can those of us who call ourselves Christians, Christ followers, be inconvenienced by walking the journey to the Cross the entire week from Palm Sunday to Resurrection Sunday?
If we can find a church that walks the journey through Stations of the Cross, are we willing to experience this even if we are not familiar with that denomination?
How about Maundy Thursday, the night before Jesus goes to the Cross?
Is it inconvenient to experience another perspective of Jesus life as we journey with Him to the Cross?
Most likely.
Perhaps this inconvenience might bring us into a closer relationship with the One in whom we believe.
Perhaps the blessings that pour out from this experience will show us another perspective of our personal relation with God through His Son.
I linger on these words that flow from my heart and ask myself if I have invited too much convenience into my own life.
I ask the One who experienced the most inconvenience of any in the world - Jesus- 'Help me move from convenience to inconvenience so that I might know you more clearly and love you more dearly."
I pray I can tred more deeply into the life of the One I follow and linger in greater inconvenience so that I can, some day, say, "I indeed took up my cross and followed Him . . . even though it was inconvenient."
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