What will people do when they find out it's true?
I don't really care if they label me a Jesus freak
There's no disguising the truth"
dc Talk, 'Jesus Freak', 1995
I've been doing a lot of travel for my job over the last year (why does it seem all my posts come back to work??). I like to compare myself to that George Clooney frequent flyer character from the movie Up In The Air - although I'm nowhere near any carrier putting my name on the side of a plane.
A few weeks ago I headed to Cairns (I won't tell any more bad travel stories, but this trip didn't really fare much better than my trip to Canberra last week). I'll tell this story in two parts - firstly, what happened on the way up. I'm a window seat kind of person, and when the stewardess says over the loudspeaker to 'take your assigned seat' I take them seriously. Someone was sitting in my assigned seat. So I asked them to move. They weren't entirely happy about it (and I don't really blame them, because there were some amazing views out that window) and seemed to indirectly imply I was holding up the plane leaving, but they moved. I had been considering doing some study during the flight for my upcoming Moore College correspondance exam, and for some reason their seemingly poor judgement of me spurred me on. I pulled out my book and read for hours, whilst munching on food from the cart and staring out my window.
The trip back was a different story. Once again, I had scored the window seat (being a frequent flyer and super switched on and all that). I had to squeeze past two pretty beefy guys ('We were having bets on who'd be sitting next to us' was their introductory line), who were very cheery and chatty and yobbo-ish. They were getting stuck into each other and swearing and having Crownies, and occasionally they would let me in on it. They seemed like the kind of guys who would shake the hand of anyone who happened to sit next to them. My confidence to study on this leg of the journey waned dramatically.
All of these people were strangers by the way. Didn't know me from a bar of soap.
I must care if people label me a Jesus freak. How will I truly fare as an ambassador for our church plant in West Pennant Hills (or, for that matter, an ambassador for Christ)? And if I care that much about strangers, how much more will I care if it's someone I know/respect/like/trust etc? And what does that really mean for my motivations?
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