Welcome to Buoy, a Life in Deeper Water podcast.

Episode 49. So Much of Life Happens on Aisle Seven (Jesus Gives Us all the Conveniences of Spiritual Growth)

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Hello human.

Sometimes when I pursue a principle, I can’t figure out how my brain gets from one idea to the next. I spend a good deal of my prayer time, scripture time, thinking time, prepping time for BUOY just trying to pull out of my subconscious what the idea actually is. I know it’s a true idea because the Holy Spirit leads the way but transcending my capabilities to let God lead my witness… well, that is a process.

That’s how today’s witness happened. I tell you this because how we witness to each other is just as much about how we are growing as it is about what God has already done for us.

Today’s BUOY started when I ran across a memory about how I wanted something in my life to be more convenient.

The World Sees Convenience as Easy Access

Convenience is a valued commodity in our culture. The rising popularity of podcasts hinges on this. I admit it. You can be doing something else, and it is not all that disruptive to your environment, given a decent pair of ear buds. Thank you for listening, by the way. I am grateful.

Convenience seems like a lightweight topic for spiritual growth because we know it as all the little things that bring you comfort in a day, the stuff you pull close to without thinking about it. Self-serving, but often not in a way that hurts anyone. Convenience makes you feel like you are riding a river with a well-behaved current, and that you are preventing the rapids by the things you do that assure an easier trip.

Convenience is defined as being able to proceed with something with little effort or difficulty. It saves resources and decreases frustration.  

The world sees convenience as easy access.

There is the no-harm, no-foul kind of convenience for instance, like choosing between price vs efficiency and effort. A simple example would be picking up something at the grocery store that would be cheaper somewhere else but you’re already standing on aisle seven.  And you need that item for dinner. So, you get it, right?

But convenience can embed itself in our hearts in ways that lead to more serious spiritual offenses that surpass paying an extra couple of dollars for a grocery item.

When our daily anthem has a chorus of wanting easy access to everything this earthly world has to offer, with little difficulty and effort, we can find ourselves spiritually compromised.

The Essay Heist for the Sake of Convenience

Consider this personal example from my early college life. It has stayed with me.

I spent my first two years of college in east Texas, to audition for and perform on a well-known dance team. I cared about my academic pursuits, but dance was my lens at the time. After one misfire with respect to roommates, I landed with a roommate that made my freshman year entirely unforgettable. She was slightly older, having just come from New York City as an Eileen Ford model (back in the day). Of course, she was fashionable far beyond my Midwest attempts at following a high school trend… but more than that we both pushed the limits. We both wanted more out of life. My roommate really nurtured my belief in my potential, and she showered me with love, laughter, and loyalty. I loved our year together. Being adventurous was important.

On that note, we stole earrings from the drugstore a block or so away from our dorm just for the challenge of working the earring aisle together, learning how to read each other’s cues. We had money to buy them. But that was not the point. This drugstore was a block from our dorm. We did not have cars. So this was easy access. We stole $1 earrings. Not exactly Ocean’s 8. Just a convenient adventure.

So many things we did during that year served the altar of easy access as I think about it. And it progressed. We conspired together to execute one academic cheat before we left for the holidays. We were both A students. So, we were planning to get a ride to the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport together for Christmas break. We had the same English class, and the semester final was scheduled late, making our departure to make our planes in Dallas a real challenge; we needed to leave 20 minutes into the final. So, we purchased blue books at the bookstore, and respectfully and honestly, sat down for about an hour in our room the night before, and answered the pre-given question in essay format. We both loved to write, and we knew the literature well. We took the blue books with us to class, waited about 20 minutes, then switched them out with the blank ones the teacher had distributed.

We left in time to make our planes. Our essay heist went off without a glitch. All for the sake of convenience. This memory serves my heart well. It has taught me about how our heart’s intent chooses our path.

I wanted easy access to my trip to the airport, then home. I wanted little effort which meant not approaching our teacher to set up an earlier time for our final. She would have. Instead, I chose differently, which denied our teacher transparency about what was going on, gave me false courage that comes with partnering in crime (or, in this case, more like a childish bad deed…), regardless of how petty. And it assured that I would not forget how doing the wrong thing “lingers”…  for decades.

My college perspective served a secular purpose.

By this secular definition, now the pursuit of convenience is often my motivation for NOT doing a Christlike thing. Helping others is not convenient, in fact it requires being out of control, relinquishing control over time spent, relinquishing control over outcomes, over effort.

How God Defines Convenience

But as I thought about this, well, you probably know what I did. I turned to the scriptures, for God’s definition. His divine Word always takes me far deeper than my subconscious can grasp.

The Greek word which is translated as ‘convenient’ is ‘katheko’ and is defined as:

to come down

2. to come to, reach to
3. it is becoming
4. it is fit

So, to do those things which are not “convenient,” or fitting for the children of God is to go against the teachings of holiness, and instead to do such things that separate us from Christ’s fellowship.

There are only two uses of this Greek word in the Bible.

In Acts the crowds referred to Paul as not being “convenient” … in other words, not fit to live according to God’s law as they understood it. They had it wrong, about Paul though. He was “convenient.” Jesus was the new law.

Acts 22:22

22 The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!”

 

In Romans, Paul refers to people who deny God as not being “convenient” …

Romans 1:28 (KVJ)

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

So, being convenient Biblically means “to fit as a child of God.”

Here’s the paradox between the two definitions:  On the spiritual landscape, convenience as we define it in the secular world is really at the center of following Jesus.

Consider this:  What did Jesus say when God raised Him from His grave, and Jesus was ascending into heaven? What did He promise for His disciples, and all of us on the Gospel of John?

John 14:26

26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

 

The Father gave us the Holy Spirit. He gave us access to Him 24/7. This is the divine application of convenience by our secular definition.

Spiritual Convenience at the Center of Your Faith Walk

Easy access to the Father. It is the ultimate in spiritual convenience:  prayer access, scripture access, Holy Spirit access as guide, counselor, protector AND SO ON.

When we answer to doing what makes us “fit” as a child of God, we are answering to coming to, reaching to His image, His grace, His love for others. Paul did it, but the crowds didn’t see it and called him ‘not fit to live’ and later in Paul’s timeline, he tells us, that with our knowledge and acceptance of God, we are convenient.

Both definitions work to promote our spiritual growth. If we make the connection in how seeking easy access can be an earthly idol, or a spiritual center of our faith walk.

And both definitions work to become a barrier to our spiritual growth. Earthly convenience is often my earthly motivation for NOT doing a Christ thing (that separation from Christ fellowship) because I want early access to the things of this world instead. It’s easier. I have control. Divine convenience is forfeited in this battle.

So much of life happens on aisle seven.

When we take on the God things in our lives, Jesus gives us all the conveniences of spiritual growth to serve others. Through one action of the heart:  Our commitment to Christ’s grace, which is divine convenience paid in full: we do nothing and receive everything through Him.