This is a comment we hear all too often today, referencing all kinds of events we might encounter in life. Maybe a homeless man with his sign, begging on the corner of University and Asher. “Boy, that’s just sad.” Perhaps even a partially comedic event, like a girl singing her heart out on American Idol, though she can’t sing. “Boy, that’s just sad.”
I had a dream last night that brought this familiar comment to my mind. In the dream, I was a contestant on a dating game TV show. You know the drill: one guy asks three girls some silly questions that help him narrow down his choice to the one for him. All the while, he can’t see the girls until after his choice has been made. Well, I made my choice. So then, they show me the girls I didn’t pick. Both weren’t much - no personality, not that hot. So I was feeling good about my choice - until I saw her. She wasn’t pretty at all. Furthermore, on getting to know her, she had no personality or ambition. When it was said and done, the only thing I could think to myself was “boy, that’s just sad.”
I see this same thing in the lives of some of the teenagers I mentor - one in particular. He’s currently dating a girl way below his standard. She is a stumbling block to him and only helps him accept life as mediocre or less.
I assume that the purpose of my dream (in short) was to wake me up to the reality of what God is offering his children: “life - to the full!” In John 10:10, our Lord says “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” Not the tenth. Not the quarter. Not the half. The full. And even then, this word “full” carries a connotation in our minds of running out some time. But in Christ, we don’t run out. The cup “runneth over” in him.
Why, then, do we accept the lesser? Why the mediocre girl? Why the easier choice? Christ has called us to a life beyond our wildest dreams - yet we settle for the one within our laziest grasp. “Boy, that’s just sad.”
