Competence

Something struck me as important today, and it made me think of a post from Alex and Brett Harris’ blog. One of the “C”s of the Rebelution is Competence. That hit me as important today when I came home from a shift leader meeting at my Cold Stone job. One of my friends and fellow shift-leaders and I are being promoted to Assistant Manager. Why? Because we are competent in our job, work hard, and honest. Far too often, Christian people (and teens in particular) give a half-hearted approach to life. Let’s face it–living for God is tough. Sometimes that part of life just makes you want to give up, when you see the hopelessness in the world, the amount of persecution and struggling. But on top of that, we must work hard (Do Hard Things) because we are labled as “Christians”. That label has carried a negative conotation for so long that the world’s eye will be fixed on you as soon as you call yourself “one of them”. So what do you want people to see when they look at you? Perhaps more importantly, what do they see when they look at you, at that Christian kid (or teen or adult). Is it someone who does just what they have to to get by? Someone who puts out some effort, but isn’t too concerned with getting the job done really well? Or is it someone who doesn’t even put out any effort? Who wants to be a Christian if the Christian they know is the 18-year-old senior who has played football for 4 years, and is STILL on the jv team, who gets Cs consistently, and rounds out his busy life with a slutty girlfriend? Wouldn’t it be such a great witness to the public view if the Christian is the 14-year-old girl who gets hard-earned Bs, worked her way up to leadership in her community, and chooses friends carefully? That’s what I’m aiming to be–the senior who leads in her youth group, puts all-out in school (even if I don’t get A’s), and lives wrecklessly for Jesus. That sounds so much more attractive, but so much harder.

Again, I ramble. But let’s try as a generation to not only do hard things, but to do what we do well.

Some pictures of my lake to leave you with…nothing particularly holy about them, I just LOVE the sun, heat, and water! 😀

One thing I thought of as I posted these…it’s important that you don’t gain competence and do things well to compete with others. That defeats the purpose.