All In: Everything

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are a reflection on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

The current sermon series at Encounter Church is about going “All In: No Reserves, Retreats, or Regrets”. Many of us have “all in” experiences to share—some at Encounter have labored for hundreds of hours as volunteers on church renovation projects—they have tirelessly salted sidewalks, mowed the grass, laid flooring and trim, fixed odds and ends, and done so much more. Other people have performed amazing physical feats, like finishing the Riverbank or a marathon or even an Ironman (yep, you guessed it, I finished an Ironman. NOPE.) I would think that one would have to dig pretty dip to swim 2.4 miles, then bike 112 miles, and finish the day with a 26.2 mile run. But when it comes to going “all in” it’s not just about completing the day’s challenges or spending weeks installing trim, it’s also about the years of training the lead up to these endeavors.

If you know me, you know that I have a tendency to go “half in”. This, as you can imagine, is not nearly as glamorous as going all in. I tend to flit between activities, enthusiastically starting something and then quitting it days (or hours) later.  For example, I was into mountain biking for a couple of years, I played guitar for a year or so, I was vegan for a couple weeks, and I made my own baby food, well, once.  Have you even blanched, pureed, and frozen spinach? Yuck. I’m afraid that I may have passed this trait along to my daughter, because two weeks ago as I carried her off the soccer field in the middle of her second practice ever she wailed, “I don’t like soccer. I want to go back to ballet.” And that was that for soccer.

Many of us approach our spiritual lives in the same ways. We might enthusiastically read our Bibles every day for a week or a month and then taper off. We might commit to prayer or to a Bible study and then find ourselves fledgling after a short time. We know that a healthy spiritual life is important, just as we know that it’s important to eat well and take a walk. But I wonder if sometimes our reticence to go “all in” for God might be a result of something that can be difficult to admit: we don’t actually want to live godly lives. At least, we don’t actually want to do everything that God requires.  

What if God tells me to change my major after I’ve already finished three years of college?

What if God calls me to be single for longer than I’d like?

What if God tells me to change jobs or to take a job in a far away place?

What if God tells me to give away a lot of money?

What if God keeps nudging me to have that difficult conversation I’ve been avoiding?

That’s the problem with going “all in”, and oddly, it’s the solution as well. Because even if we aren’t brave enough to go “all in” today, Jesus already braved God’s demands when he sacrificed his life for ours. In a few days we’ll hear the last installment of the “All In” series. In the meantime, we’ve certainly been challenged to take our spiritual disciplines and God more seriously, even when it feels like it just might require everything.

[Kristin vanEyk attends Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. Find out more about Encounter at http://myencounterchurch.org/]