The Biggest Loser: Friend Edition

 
So recently, I entered into a Biggest Loser type contest with June. The goal: first one to lose 13 lbs wins. Wins what? $200 worth of clothing and/or accessories. Hefty bet, huh? Well, I just lost. Sort of. Once a person reaches their goal weight, they have to maintain it for 30 days. I'm not even at the goal, and the clock is ticking on me! Grrr. I was close to the goal, at a point when she was far away...and now I'm kinda far away when she's there.

How did this happen?

Life is full of excuses. And I'm not usually one to seriously hide behind them. But let's play devil's advocate.  I repeat: How did this happen?

1. I had surgery and could not under doctor's orders do any strenuous activity for 8 to 10 days. Meanwhile, June was twisting her little Asian body around at Yoga/Strogra/Bikram, blah, blah, blah. No exercise for me = weight gain.
2. My birthday came around: 30! After that, I was in a small depression. As June is well older, she had already gone through these blues and was unaffected. Depression = food = weight gain.
3. As a result of #2, I turned to drugs...ok that's a lie (that probably would've made me lose weight anyway...)

At the point where I resort to joking falsehood, I know the gig is up. I'm out of excuses. At the end of the day, the whole truth is: I'm flat out lazy. And I was lazy up until the moment I realized June was close to reaching her goal. Suddenly, it was urgent. Suddenly, it was crash diet time. Suddenly, I was frantic to do what I should have been doing all along in order to get that $200 outfit. 

So what?

It made me think of the parable of the ten virgins (Read Matthew 25:1-13). Five were wise and had oil for their lamps. Five were foolish and had NO oil whatsoever. When it was lamp lighting time 50% of that group of otherwise cool peeps were out of luck. That parable is a serious cautionary tale about the ineffectiveness of last minute preparation. I'm not going to go through the parable (though I may in another blog), but rather on why that parable had to be told. It was in response to a question:

“Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” - Matthew 24:3

Man oh man, I wish I had that insight: when will June reach her goal? If I knew the answer to that...I would've won! Why? Because I would have worked it out perfectly, in order to have lost 13 lbs at the point when she had only lost 12. I would have been literally one step ahead of her. Why? Because that's how lazy people think. 

We live in a world full of spiritually lazy people. People who only want to get right with God one second before it is required of them, in order to gain the prize. However, that only works when you know the timing. This is why God is not mocked (Galatians 6:7). He knows that's how we think, and so He warned us: 

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. - Matthew 24:42-44. 

Since we can't know the timing of the Lord's coming...NOW is our only recourse. Isn't that troubling? Or convicting? We waste so much of now, thinking there is a later...but there may not be.