tylenol… the wonder pill?

so this past april i had an awesome opportunity to go to chicago with my church midtown… the trip was amazing… i saw how jesus worked through tons of people’s lives… i saw brokenness… i saw forgiveness… i saw people being like salt and light… i remember one afternoon i was walking in the middle of downtown chicago, listening to coldplay on my ipod… the air was chilly and chicago does live up to its bill as the windy city… as i walked down the streets… i remember seeing tons and tons of ads in every street corner… but one particular ad just stood out to me… it was one of those bus stop billboards that would change to a new ad every minute or so… the first ad it showed was a very vivid, colorful, glass filled to the brim, wild berry smoothie with the text “skipped a meal today and now have a headache?…” i naturally thought this was an ad for a joint that you can get awesome smoothies on the fly… and then the second part of the ad pops up… it was a bottle of tylenol with the text reading “pop some tylenol and relief that headache right away…” i seriously stopped dead right there in the middle of the sidewalk and just stared… trying to comprehend the message of this tylenol ad was sending… are you kidding me?… if you have a headache because you haven’t ate, the solution was to pop some pills?… maybe i’m old fashioned but i’ve always thought that if you are hungry, the solution to the problem is… you know… eat food…

that ad reminded me how twisted we have become when we deal with our own problems… it showed that we no longer really aim at the source of our problems, we just want temporary relief… instant gratification… and ignore the problem… we want to figure out a way so we can feel good, and by doing that, we imagine the problem was solved… i strongly believe that’s why our country’s divorce rate is hovering over 50%, if things aren’t working out with your spouse, don’t bother talking it out and figure out what was wrong, just get a divorce and problem solved… and why the porn industry is a multi-billion dollar industry… i feel lonely… i want satisfaction right now… and if the murder rate is too high, we should just take away guns, because guns are the problem… not the people that murder… we ignore the root of these problems i just mentioned is that we are just selfish… just selfish… but we choose other ways out and ignore the root of it… we have become so accustomed to cheat our way out of a problem…

i had a conversation once with a good friend of mine about the evangelism methods… the one verse method etc etc etc… he asked how i felt about these methods… my reply was i found these methods completely stupid and unnecessary… he started to defend that these methods were essential to tell others about jesus… i asked him why… he responded how else am i going to tell them about the gospel…

the problem isn’t that he needs to learn more methods so he can tell others about jesus… the problem is that he needs to know the gospel well enough so he can spread it… he needs to read the gospel more and not learn more methods…

we need to remember the solution to all of our problems is jesus… to really get down to the heart issue and the root is that we need jesus… we need to learn how to love like he did… we need to learn how to be a selfless servant like he was… we need to learn to put others before ourselves and get down on our knees and wash each other’s feet… we need to learn how to sacrifice like to the point how jesus sacrificed his life for us… we need to learn to be honest with our own problems… and run to jesus… we have to stop taking the easy way out… the difference between what is easy and what is right is worlds apart…

i pray that we will look at our own flaws and problems without any fear, any excuses, and run to jesus with them… and let the holy spirit confront us on what we need to do and learn how to be more like our savior…

one love,

jeff