Transparent Christian Magazine

In the fall of 1989 I was a freshman at Central Michigan University. I used to say jokingly that CMU was where you went if you couldn’t get into “U of M” or “State” (University of Michigan or Michigan State for you non-Big 10 folks). That’s not exactly true of course, but was pretty much the the case for me…I also think that my high school counselor (a CMU alum) pulled a few strings to get my application through. Two-point-something-or other doesn’t cut it at a Division 1 school.

The first shock came on day 1, when I walked into the Towers dorm. It housed more people than the entire city where I was raised. The second shock was a book, laying on the desk of my as-yet-unmet-roommate. It was titled “The Satanic Bible”. (Writing that just gave me the creeps). I had never heard of that book, but at that point in my life, I didn’t know much about the Holy Bible either (not that I have much of THAT figured out even now!)

My roommate Scott Bungart was a good guy, and was exploring his faith at the time. Shortly after moving in, we had a church fella stop by our room one night and ask us if we ‘died tonight, did we think we would go to Heaven?’. Scott answered him “yes, I think so”. Scott later told me the book was more for shock affect, and he left it out on purpose.

I was reminded of that story today when my co-worker Jeremy and I were discussing some of his concepts on how people start a relationship with God. He said “you know that car commercial where they tell you to ‘Drive Everything Else First?’ I think that’s a perfect spiritual analogy.” He went on to say “In many ways, we {as Christians} all sort of–drive everything else first– before we finally accept Christ. In that way we all try living life on our own….defaulting to our own sinful nature….We ‘drive’ everything else but God. Where some might try drugs or alcohol, some may try porn or sex, some may try sports or music…but many of us try to fill that hole in our hearts with something other than God before finally realizing that only God fits in there. This seems to take longer for some than others…. And in keeping with the car commercial analogy, we almost can’t truly appreciate how well God fits in there, unless or until we’ve tried to jam something else in.”

We had been discussing our jobs. We are both blessed to work for a company that treats their employees well. Every organization has it’s problems, but overall we have great leadership and each of us has the ability to contribute to something greater than ourselves. The reason we know how good we have it, is that we have both worked for some terrible bosses and organizations in the past. Places that had impossible demands on their employees. Places that were demeaning, and lead by bullying. When you’ve worked somewhere like that, you really appreciate a good environment.

I thought it was a great analogy, and my question to you is this…Is your ‘vehicle’ truly satisfying? If not, you may want to–drive–a–new–car…The on-board navigation system is a bit hard to follow sometimes, but the journey is amazing.

Love to you all,
Jason