Watching basketball games is a painful thing…like literally! My heart goes to pounding and my stomach sorta churns. My mouth starts screaming things like “where’s the foul” and “box out!” Wild cheers for a shot made or a sweet pass just happen! I can’t contain it!! But only on certain games. Games my boys play in (or the Cowboys, but, well…). In other words, in games I care about. Games I’m invested in. The physical symptoms don’t appear for just any game with any team. I get excited only when I’m invested in the team.
Invested. What are we invested in?
Some of you watch the stock markets’ ups and downs. Stocks, bonds, mutual funds. Sadly, I have no clue about these things, but to y’all who are invested, you care! It means something to you because you’ve invested your hard earned money.
The local church. Are we invested? Not just with our money, but have we invested our time? Our talents? Have we volunteered? Do we participate? Do we pray? Do we care about our church’s success and mission?
The local church school. Growing up, my parents were heavily invested in our church school. So that meant they cared. They cared if the bathrooms were dirty, so we cleaned them. The halls needed waxed? We’d wax them. The gym needed swept? The broom was pushed. They were also invested in the kids who attended, so more than the four Webb kids were paid for over the years. Prayers were invested in that school. Time was invested. And sweat, lots and lots of sweat. I learned a lot about investing one’s self from Ray and Edie.
Our kids. That’s an easy one! We love our little cherubs and invest every day in them. Cha-Ching! But it’s more than that, right? Time. Discipline. Work. Reading that book…again, or even harder, listening to them read that book to us…again!
All these things matter to us because we care. We spend time, put forth energy, give money, invest. We want our families and churches to succeed. We want our school to thrive. We want our team to win! Right? Do we? Or do we really not care, because we’re not invested. Do we go along feeling normal…no butterflies or chest pains, no headaches? Will we make it to church next week? Will we support the school’s functions? Will we sweep what needs swept? Will we put in time with our families or put it on cruise control?
I want to stay invested in all these things, but mostly invested in Jesus. I want to always deeply care about what He cares about. But sometimes my focus is dimmed, my path gets crooked, and I don’t seem to care as much as I once did. I can feel it when I haven’t invested in Him as much as I need to. The Good News for us, for me, is because of the cross, He is invested in us 100%! He’s all in! His path never strays. His focus remains sharp. And He wildly cheers us back to Him. Over and over again. I am so grateful!