I'm not above admitting it.
When it has come to most things in my life, like sports and school and relationships and money, I have never truly had to work for any of it. I was naturally athletic and the passion I had for the game was innate. School didn't come easy, I was never as great as my siblings who were all much more intellectually gifted than myself, but I never once wondered if I would actually graduate or if I would ever make it to college. I just had this sense of entitlement and through everything, I just assumed that it was my right to attend higher education, regardless of how well I performed. When it has come to relationships, people have always just liked me (or tolerated me) because of who my parents were or what my last name was... in school growing up, I don't even remember making friends (or carrying the ability to), I just remember having friends and for many of the people I am close with, they're close with my family so they like me by default. My people came naturally. As far as money, I have never needed anything and to that I thank my parents, who worked tirelessly to give me the best of everything and there's no doubt in my mind, that they would hand me the world if I asked.
My life has been privileged.
So when the idea of religion surfaces, I carry the same attitude. I was raised in a Christian home, where we might not have prayed before every meal or sacrificed goats every night, but there was an expectation that whenever the church doors were open, I was also there, sitting in the pews. I knew hymns before I could read, could recite bible stories without ever opening the bible, and understood the expectation that Jesus Christ would be my savior.
I remember during a mission trip overseas a couple years back when I visited the country of Belize, a small country in Central America, when an older woman approached me and a group from my team and started asking questions that seemed absolutely ludicrous to me saying things like, "Do Christians really drink blood?" and "Do you really think Jesus goes into your heart?" and my personal favorite, "I head they sometimes put poison in your juice and make everyone drink it."
As an American who has always grown up around Christianity, these thoughts were something that I never took literally and it was the first time I understood the sense of entitlement that Americans have, especially myself. In my world, I know that if I ever have a serious question where I truly don't understand something, I can use a fancy thing called Google or can use my fingers to send a message within seconds to anyone wherever I choose... or heaven forbid, I could just open my mouth and ask a number of preachers or spiritual mentors in my life. Daily, I take these luxuries for granted and I always expect that when I close my eyes at night, that I will still wake up in the morning and have them at my finger tips.
Fast forward from then to now.
I have some really great friends in my life, who never shy away from asking tough questions or from putting me in my place when I start to let my ego get bigger than it should be. This past week, I woke up to a text from a friend who all she asked said, "What if Jesus didn't die for you?" Normally I would have taken this rather defensively, but knowing my friend is a strong woman of faith, I started to imagine what she was actually asking before replying back, "He died for everyone else except me? or are there's other He didn't die for too?"
She replied back quickly saying, "Does it matter either way? What would you do if He chose to die for everyone else, but specifically said, "Not you, Ted."
I thought for a minute and all I could respond with was, "Well... that would be lonely. I would definitely have a really big case of FOMO."
[For the older generation, FOMO means the fear of missing out].
What if Jesus died for everyone, but specifically said, "Not you."
In all honestly, I would feel left out... like that feeling of getting picked last to play dodgeball but on like an eternity scale. I was typically picked quickly because I was always pretty aggressive at dodgeball, in fact, my PE teacher in 7th grade said I was the reason we had to stop playing, since I broke a kid's glasses and heads were always my target... so I can't always relate to that line. However, I do have a large family and I know that feeling where you just don't always know if you belong... while I love my family and I never question their love for me, my brothers and sisters, when were all together, have always had their wives and husbands and kids around. By the time they were the age that I am now, they had already settled down and were married and making me an aunt, so sometimes when I'm sitting on the floor coloring with my niece or chasing my nephews around, this sense of jealousy rises inside of me and I get lost because a lot of the time, I am just another kid to them. I remember a couple years back during the holidays, my family was having a conversation that I was not privy to at the time, so when I walked into the room, I asked what they were talking about only to have my dad say, "This is an adult conversation." I remember feeling so hurt, even though I know in my heart of hearts he was kidding... I still felt small, as if I didn't matter, as if I didn't belong.... so I say all of that to say, I understand wanting to be part of something that you're not.
As I thought about it more over the last couple days, I started to internalize that question, wondering if I would live my life differently or if I would just simply try to fit in and hope that no one noticed.
Would it change who I was as a person, would I think differently, act differently, live differently?
Would I care less about how others saw me? Would I sin publicly, having no shame, as I would already be damned to Hell? Would I sin differently? Would I lie more? Would I be self-serving, being more self-involved than I am now? Would I shy away from even more Christians, justifying my anger and hate towards them?
Thank you Jesus, that I truly don't need to wonder about such questions as I know the truth, but yesterday, I responded back with, "Honestly, I would just try to fit in and be something I wasn't, as I think in that case, accepting the truth would be much harder than just living that lie."
Boom.
After I hit send, I realized the point of that question. I'm not entirely sure she ever meant for that question to be about imagining what life would be like had Jesus not died for me, because we all know (or I hope that everyone knows) that He has died for everyone, but rather to reflect on the differences between knowing the truth and living it.
What if Jesus did die for you? What if you can accept that Jesus Christ really did come to this Earth, took all of the sins of this world, the painful, ugly, terrible sins, and died on the cross anyways? Then He did exactly what He said He would, and He rose from the dead, destroying the power of death, forever.
That question was made for me to self-reflect, to remember the ABSOLUTE privilege it is to know the truth, and to be someone who just stops trying to fit in to this world that was not made for me and to be who I was created to be. Sometimes, I think I forget that Jesus made a sacrifice and I get all caught up in my messy chaos, that I actually sometimes get entitled, as if believing in Christ and being a Christian is my right.
Jesus Christ is a gift, not a right.
If you know all that, would it change who you were as a person, would you think differently, act differently, live differently?
Would you care less about how others saw you?
Would you sin differently?
If you actually took the time to think through the question, "What would life be like if Jesus didn't die for you," would you care more, live differently, lose your sense of entitlement, appreciate the gospel more, if the thought of having it was actually not there?
