What solely matters

 

Contrary to popular belief, to look cool on the outside does nothing to enhance who you are on the inside.

Here are a few examples of incorrect thinking concerning what solely matters:

During my high school years I had plenty of issues.   However, one of the biggest was the fact that I was a nerd and didn’t like that my shoes were not the latest fashion.  I had this false hope that if, somehow, I could get the sneakers that were in style, suddenly all my troubles would go away.

So, a few days before tenth grade, I went to the local shoe barn in search of that elusive resolution to being cool.  With my dad in tow, we walked in and worked our way toward the back, ducking under several pairs of fishing boots hanging in the aisle over head, till we found the sneaker section.  It was there that I discovered a pair of Nike canvas sneakers, with a beige swoosh and a rubber front and thought I just had to have them.   Accordingly, I debated with my dad making every logical argument I could because he was dead set against them since he felt they were too much and just not his style.  Who knows why, but eventually he changed his mind and got them for me.

To this day, I can still remember sitting in the den the night before school was to begin watching TV holding my new sneakers and just feeling cooler.  Unfortunately, the next day when I got to school no one seemed to treat me any better because now I wore a pair of sneakers with a swoosh on them.  The fact remained I may have been wearing cool shoes, but I was still a nerd, just wearing cool shoes.  Who I really was had not changed, I may have felt better, but that’s about it.

Another example of thinking something you can purchase can make you better is the Michael Jordan commercial from the 1980’s.  It’s the one where a young Spike Lee, aka Mars, is constantly questioning Michael Jordan throughout the thirty minute commercial trying to uncover what makes him the best player in the universe.  He asks if it’s his socks or his baggy shorts or haircut, etc.  Constantly coming back with the line, “it’s got to be the shoes,” to which Michael says, “no Mars.”  Ironically the commercial is suggesting that if you want to be like Mike, you need these shoes.   In essence Michael was right it’s not the shoes, but there were a lot of young men back in the day, who just had to have them anyway.

 Here are a few examples of correct thinking concerning what solely matters:

A more accurate account of what solely matters in life was set by another athlete, Michael Chang, one time French open winner.  Years ago, I heard a story about him when he chose to think of another over himself.  It was during a tennis tournament when he gave a pair of his own shoes to fellow athlete who was in need of them.  To me, Chang had a depth about him that defines cool; he chose to give of himself.  Rather than just trying to look good, he was seeking to do good for others.  If memory serves it was an deed that long out lived his career.

On a more serious note, just the other day I went to the viewing of a seventeen year old boy who had just months before been healthy.  He suddenly had contracted a mysterious disease, which later turned out to be a form of a severe immunodeficiency disorder and he went to be with Jesus last week.  However, when I was at his viewing I was encouraged that his parents, whom I had grown up with, had laid a shirt in his casket which read: This body is just a rental.  This young man and his family knew what solely matters in life and death.

Just the other day this same thought was reinforced as I was listening online to a pastor by the name of Francis Chan.  As he was speaking Francis made mention of a story on a similar vein about soul matters.  He said that he had a friend, Frank Pastore, an ex major league baseball pitcher for the Reds and now a national radio host, that was speaking about how our body is not as important as our soul. To get the full effect of his friend’s words he played the live audio.

Here is what he said in paraphrased form.  Frank was talking about how that his body was temporary and that his soul is the real him.  Then, out of the blue, he made a statement that if he were to drive his motorcycle home and get hit by a car and die that his real body would not be the one dead on the highway.  Hours later what he said, in jest, literally happened when he was hit by a car on his motorcycle and weeks later died from the pending injuries. Yet, Frank Pastore spoke the truth: that was just his body, his soul was with God.

Fashion aside, in the end, what solely matters is whether your soul is right with God or not. 

Swavel