On Black Friday

Today is Black Friday, so named because it is the day on which most retailers hope to begin earning their profit for the year. The name always reminds me of the Black Plague, though. It is the Friday of death, the day that people kill each other over DVD players and Hannah Montana toys.

I personally think it's stupid, people camping out all night long so that they can be the first one to buy the latest, greatest item. It really shows how consumer-minded our culture is. It's cutthroat. People literally get trampled every year, getting run over by shopping carts and psychotic people. Talk about a story for the kids...."Well you see, I was grabbing the last Tickle-Me-Elmo when this old lady whipped around the corner on her motorized scooter, ran me over, and took my doll! That's where I got this awesome scar......"

Nonsense.

While I am tempted to continue to rant about how America has gotten way too excited about buying stuff, I'm not going to post about our greedy nature today. Instead, I'd like to make a different comparison. On Black Friday, people will do whatever it takes to get that item that they so desire. Whether it's camping out all night at the front door of the store, getting up at 3:00 a.m., or locking themselves in the store dressing room so that they can already be inside when the doors open, people go to all kinds of extremes to attain a Christmas gift.

Why aren't we willing to be as extreme in our faith towards Christ? We want only as much Jesus as is comfortable and easy. We don't want to have to work or do anything out of the ordinary to achieve a strong relationship with him. We want to be served our Jesus nice and easy, with a side salad and a glass of sweet tea, thank you.

It doesn't work like that. Jesus said that if we are to be his disciples, we must leave everything behind and die to ourselves before we can follow him. There's nothing easy and comfortable about that. That's extreme! And if we can go to such extremes to buy a frivolous toy or electronic item, we should be willing to do whatever it takes to get closer to Christ.

After all, he's the greatest Christmas gift there ever was.