Choking on the Reality of Being a Christian

Have you ever witnessed someone who is having trouble breathing, or have you felt the pain that comes with your lungs closing up, yourself? At lunch, one of my friends couldn’t breathe- she was having an asthma attack. About every five minutes her lungs would close up and she would sit there with the fear that her lungs may not open up again. However, she is so tough that she didn’t want help, and she thought that she would be ‘ok’. I couldn’t take watching her sit there without being able to draw breath into her body. All ten of the people at the table were just watching her, but if something was going to go wrong, if everything wasn’t going to be ‘ok’, I wasn’t going to be the one who just sat there hoping for the best. So I told the nurse.  I knew my friend would be mad at me for ratting her out; yet, the way I see it, a dead relationship is better than a dead friend.

You may not see the biblical connection to this story, but I saw it when I realized the frightening truth that if I didn’t do something, if the situation had been bad enough, and I had just sat there, my friend could’ve lost her life. It’s like watching someone choke on food; most people are like, “Are you ok?” Does a simple question like that solve the problem? No. If no one around you did anything about the fact that the person choking was in a life threatening situation, then that person would probably die. Hate to be blunt with everyone, but we as Christians can’t just sit here asking, “Are you ok?” to the people who don’t know God. Because just like the person choking, not knowing God puts that person in, not only a life threatening situation, but an eternity threatening situation. Then we as Christians have to do the impossible- take action.

Taking action is incredibly scary! You’re afraid to be judged, and it always is really difficult to tell if you’re doing the right thing. Have you ever noticed that the hardest decisions, the ones the devil is fighting you on, turn out to be the most worthwhile? And that the easy decisions that we make on impulse or without thought to what God wants, have the most damaging, lasting consequences? Out of all of this I think the main reason we struggle with taking action is because we’re afraid of what might change. We love being comfortable and staying inside the box, so to speak. But do we ever stop to think that we already have a place in Heaven and so many people around us still don’t know God?

In James 2:18 we read, “But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.” You don’t get to Heaven because of your deeds, but without them, your faith is worthless. God calls us in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) to go out and spread His good news. He gives us the choice to serve Him, so the question is:

Are we going to let our friends choke, or are we going to take action, step out of our comfort zone, and serve Christ?