In the vast majority of my adult life, my couch has become a friend, a confidant, even a lover. After what I consider to be a long hard day, the couch has become my resting place. And I suppose there’s nothing wrong with allowing the couch to become a place where I can kick off my shoes, and simply relax. That’s not the problem, though.
The problem occurs when the couch takes precedence over the world.
The couch, for me, has become a stagnant symbol of pathetic inactivity. I choose it’s comfort over the world’s grief. I choose the ease of its cushions over the difficulty of ministering Jesus to truly thirsty people.
My father is now officially confined to a wheelchair. He transfers himself between the wheelchair and the couch, every day of his life. Barring a miracle from God, my father will never be able to get off the couch, and out into the world, ever again. He still has dreams, and those dreams are still big. But he is done fulfilling those dreams this side of eternity.
We’ll all come to that place in our lives. We’ll all look back and wonder what could have been, if we’d only spent less time on the couch, and more time in the world.
My friend Kathy recently decided to get off the couch. She had never been on a missions trip of any kind, and is a self-professed germophobe. But when I started talking about digging a clean water well in a Third World Country, Kathy was in – hook, line, and sinker. She never faltered. Never wavered. And you should have seen her love children, and use a gigantic drill for good.
I want to be more like Kathy. I want to get off the couch more in this second half of my life, than I did in the first.
I want to stop questioning whether or not I’m “called by God” to help in the inner city, or in the Third World, or in my church. If I keep asking the “Where?” question, I’ll just end up on the couch again. Of course I’ve been called by God to do these things.
We just need to stop analyzing, and do something.
We just need to do anything.
Do anything.
