A Time and a Place

I love the Sunday comics. I don't read the paper much, but I love the comics. Occasionally, I think that the comics hold bits and pieces of profound truth, which says to me that I'm reading something worthwhile, even if its not the political section.

For example, this afternoon I was reading Peanuts. I'm not sure how it is still in circulation as the cartoonist passed away, but I don't loose sleep on it. Anyways, the setting was the typical baseball field, where Charlie pitches and his friends, usually Lucy, are in the outfield.

The first frame shows Lucy ignoring a pop-up, as it falls two inches away from her. Charlie marches over (or so I assume as its hard to see moving action in a frame-by-frame cartoon), and starts chewing her out because she didn't go for the ball. When he demands an answer, Lucy's response is simple: "I was having my quiet time."

Now, in the Christian circle. a quiet time is when we spend time alone with God, separating ourselves from distractions so we can focus solely on talking, meditating, and just "hanging out" with the Lord. I'm sure that Peanuts wasn't using the phrase, "quiet time" in the same way, but it made me think: do we as Christians ignore our responsibilities and justify that by saying, "We were having our quiet time."

More specifically, do we focus so much on our relationship with the Lord and ignore what's going on around us? Do we latch onto the truth that salvation comes from a personal choice to follow Christ, and ignore the equal truth that it should move us to action in our world?

For instance: the two greatest commandments are love God...and then love others. Jesus calls His disciples to Himself...and then calls them to go into the world.

I know I've been feeling like this for a while. I've been more concerned about finding fellowship than thinking that maybe there's some good I can do while I'm waiting. I'm not sure one is better than the other. In fact, I wonder if both are meaningless without the other. And by meaningless, I mean how can we love God and not show that love to others? And how can we love others in a tangible AND eternal ways when we are not in a relationship with the eternal Savior?

We cannot ignore social justice and loving others and justify it saying that we were too busy developing our relationship with the Lord. We also cannot devote our entire lives to social justice, and ignore our relationship with the Lover of the world.

That's what it means to be a Christian. That is how we sum up the law of the Prophets: Love God and love others. Jesus never said we had an option between the two.