Toy or Vehicle?

For the past five years I take the elevator when I arrive at the church building.  A lack of balance makes stairs dangerous.  I usually am the first to use the elevator.  I frequently think of how grateful I am it is there.  I push two buttons, walk in and out a door, and I have changed floors.  So simple and easy—not at all impossible!

About an hour and a half later, I reverse the process to return to the first floor.  At times I encounter some children who use the elevator to play.  They push the same buttons to go down and back up.  Sometimes they will push the buttons, go down, run up the stairs, and go down again.

Interestingly, they push the same buttons I push, enter and exit the same small compartment I enter and exit, and change floors just like I do.  However, if a Mom or Dad catches them, they get a severe scolding, a warning never to do that again, and must stay with Mom or Dad and “act nice.”  Yet, when I do the same thing, I am never scolded, warned, or taken “in tow.”

Why?  There is a difference in purpose.  I am going somewhere out of a sense of need to fulfill a purpose.  They are playing.  If the children needed the elevator, suddenly they would be like me—just changing floors to achieve a purpose.  It is not a matter of buttons, or entering and exiting, or changing floors.  It is a matter of purpose.

Do you worship with purpose or just come? 

David Chadwell
March 5, 2012  *  Fort Smith, AR
 

Previous Article

Index

Next Article

  Link to other Writings of David Chadwell

  Link to David's Home Page