Quit Monitoring When You Can Move

My man and I find the current Lifelock commercials both clean and entertaining, which is an increasingly rare offering from what my Papaw Stone used to call the one-eyed monster. That was Papaw’s nickname for the television back when Miss Kitty was the poorest role model on the tube. If only, right? But, I figure that’s an obscure reference for a portion of my audience, so back to those Lifelock commercials.

One scene takes place in a bank. Armed robbers are seen descending on the lobby, as fearful customers immediately drop to the floor. A frightened woman looks up at a security guard who appears to be calmly observing the situation and whispers, “Do something!”

The man patiently explains that he isn’t a security guard, but a security monitor. As a monitor, his job is simply to notify people if there is a robbery. Mr. Monitor pauses, looks around, and makes his announcement to the incredulous customer, “There’s a robbery.”

In this way, Lifelock effectively uses humor to promote their identity protection services with the wisest of tag lines, “Why monitor a problem if you don’t fix it?”

Indeed. As entertaining as Lifelock’s commercials are to this storyteller, they remind me of how we can all be prone to taking the monitoring approach to what keeps us from experiencing an abundant life in Christ, instead of addressing it. I’ll toss out a couple sentences to get us started.

“I know reading the Bible would help me, but I just don’t enjoy it.”

“I know I should pray, but it’s hard to find the time.”

Correctly identifying our situation without doing anything to change it is as ludicrous as a security monitor at a bank.  We’ll never see our desires changed by trying to will ourselves to want what God wants to give us. And yet, I’ve found that we can yield our wills to Him and begin to ask Him to transform us until we love what He loves, and we want what He wants. I can promise you that God loves to answer that kind of prayer.

Why monitor a problem that keeps you from doing life with God, when you can change it?    

Hugs, Shellie