Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Lessons from "House"

Emily and I love to watch "House" together on Tuesday nights. If you haven't seen the show it is an incredibly intriguing show in which a Dr. House tries to figure out what is wrong with the patients with extremely rare diseases, all while being an absolute jerk (secretly I like him). One thing that is interesting about the show is that at times there are very serious themes or thought provoking statements that leave me chewing on deeply spiritual thoughts. Tonight was no different as Dr. House made a comment that had intense spiritual implications.

I don't have the exact line but it went something like this: "We do not try and eliminate misery we just try to minimize it." Is this what we are called to as Christians? Am I simply here to minimize misery or is there something more grand, something life changing, something unmiserable that I was put on this earth for? I think House is misguided in his view of misery.

As Christians in a secular world we have been called to cultural transformation. To eliminate the misery with the incredible power of the gospel. To not only change our lives but to change the world we are living in by making everything we do for the glory of Christ (Col 3:23). Doing homework is not only for a good grade but it is for God's glory. Running cross country ceases to be just a hobby and becomes a highly spiritual, sacred event. Who we date and what that looks like has serious kingdom ramifications. Our lives are more than just a journey to avoid misery, but instead they are narratives of Christ's overwhelming grace and the elimination of misery only happens through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.

So is our job to just minimize misery? Absolutely not let's eliminate misery and change the world!

For more reading on this concept check out this post by Matt Adair.

2 comments:

Christ Community Students said...

OH SNAP. you have a blog. i will put this on our student blog. your is much more spiritual than ours: )

Emily said...

not an English major...you even correctly punctuated a TV show...that deserves mad props!