I am 5’8.5” tall. If I was 6’ tall I really wouldn’t bother mentioning the other half inch . . . but currently it is important to me. Of my many distinctions, the fact that I lived through part of the hippie generation, without ever wearing bell bottoms, deserves at least, honorable mention.

Maybe not so honorable.

Blue jeans were always too long for me and by the time my mother finished shortening them, the “bell” was history. You see my belt size is longer than my leg length . . . I don’t even like the way that sounds.

It would only be fitting then that I should grow up on an island where the only real organized sport was basketball. You remember as a teenager, looking for something to be good at. I wanted to play basketball. I had no skills and no physical advantage. In the eleventh grade I tried out for the team and actually made it.

Sounds easy in one paragraph but it wasn’t.

Every spare minute that I could find, I had a basketball in my hands. I learned to dribble the ball and to shoot and I was pretty good at it. Basketball consumed me. It was the price that I paid to make the cut. No one told me what I had to do, I just wanted the end goal enough to give myself to its pursuit.

These days, I am consumed with something . . . someone else. Everything that I do is measured around that which consumes me. There is nothing special about me but there is something incredibly special about what I want. You may or may not want it . . . your decision.

I have a dear friend whose children gave him a Christmas gift “package” that allows him to drive a NASCAR around a track . . . to have that experience. It is rumored that he actually shed a few tears when he opened the gift. I told my wife that I would have cried too if someone had given that to me for Christmas. (for different reasons)

It is becoming increasingly evident to me that if we are to make a difference in this world, the children of God must become consumed with their Father. His Pleasure must become our passion. With all my heart, I believe that the unbelieving world around us is simply waiting for the church to fall out of love with itself and to fall hopelessly in love with the God that we say we know at some level.

Is the love of Christ consuming you? Is there any option really? Lord Jesus, . . . consume my heart, my soul, my mind, my desires, my very being until all that I am is lost in all that YOU are. Amen!