Here's another thing that happened recently that made me think about all this stuff (I could probably share hundreds of stories, but that'd bore people to tears) ...

When I was a freshman, one of the staff in our ministry shared her vision with me that one day no one would be able to say that the reason they didn't attend something was because they didn't hear about it (k, that was more than a double negative.  ah well, I'm not an English major).  What that led to was the creation of a web site and a listserve for our ministry.  The web site was nothing to write home to mom about, but it met its goal.  The listserve on the other hand was one of the single most effective tools in communicating to the movement what was going on.

All through the remainder of my years, I was well aware that no one knew the work that went on behind the scenes to keep the web site and the listserve going and up-to-date.

Every year there are some people who send an email to the whole listserve asking to be taken off it (not the procedure to follow to be removed from the listserve).  Recently there was someone who did as such.  I was about to delete the message, but it was from someone I've known for years (we were both students together), so I decided to read it.  He actually wasn't making a mistake by emailing the whole listserve.  He was saying his goodbyes, of sorts.

For about 4 years in school, I was managing pretty much all things technical in the movement.  Some things weren't carried on, but some things were.  Fortunately the listserve management was one that was taken over.  This friend who emailed the listserve to say his goodbyes had his humor, but also tried to acknowledge those who made the listserve possible.  He tried to honor those who had packed his parachute.  The two guys who had taken control of the listserve after I graduated, he acknowledged them, however he couldn't remember my name.

I definitely wasn't acting alone.  There are many people who have packed my parachute over the years.  However, can you even imagine how hard it feels when you've put so much time and energy into serving others and then they don't remember your name?  Unfortunately, probably every person who reads this (I'll pretend for a second that people read this) knows exactly what that feels like.  It sucks.  You know (well, maybe much later) that the person doesn't intend any harm, but it just sucks when you help someone out in some significant way and they either have no idea or don't seem to care.

As I'm thinking off the cuff right now, I wonder if that's why Christians have such a reputation of being so hypocritical.  Life would be so much easier if God called people to serve in ways that they'd be recognized.  It'd sure make it much more fun to serve and to care for people.  It'd make it a whole lot more fun to send other people birthday cards if they remembered your own.  It'd make it easier to ask others how they're doing and listen to their response if they listened to you.

But that's not real life.  Real life is that people don't know who packs their parachute.  Real life is that we don't want to go pick up the books of the strange kid at school because no one before has thanked us for doing that so why would this boy.

Real life makes it so easy to be a hypocritical Christian because a biblical view of Christianity just seems like a fairy tale. (yes, that's an intentional segue into my following posts on some guys in scripture who probably felt the same struggle - k, well, one of the guys I have in mind definitely felt the struggle and wrote extensively about it)