Comfort Zone Drive Thru

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind2 Timothy 1:7

This weekend my sister was down and she has a great fear of moths. We were all sitting up talking late one night and a huge moth darted at her face, she of course went into hysterics and got really upset. After she calmed down we were discussing her fear of not only moths but wasps and the like. She made a statement that really stood out in my head. She said I would rather feel the sting than to see it or hear it !

I've been rolling that around in my head for a few days now. This morning I got up and printed out 100 flyers explaining why we as supporters of marriage between one man and one women should at this time boycott McDonalds for their financial contributions and seat on the board of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. McDonalds has stepped away from a neutral standpoint and is now openly supporting the agenda of the NGLCC and by conclusion supporting gay marriage. Now I am the first one to tell you that I love a Big Mac and McDonald French fries are the bomb but until they decide to withdraw their support from an agenda that wants to destroy the family as we know it I can personally no longer give them my money.

While handing out these flyers the range of responses was quite mesmerizing. I had people who read the information and decided they didn't stand for what McDonalds is supporting, I had people who read it and went right on through, I was laughed at, given thumbs up and even completely ignored. The one response that bothered me the most were the people who didn't want the information I was offering. I had several people whose windows were down, eye contact was made but yet they refused to take what I was offering. I told them it was just some information they might want to be aware of but they still didn't want it. That to me was most mind-blowing. Who doesn't want knowledge? Knowledge is power yet these people didn't want information that could have been possibly life changing. They didn't know what the information was so why refuse it? My suspicions are that once knowing they might have to become uncomfortable so they would rather just not know.

This made me think back to the statement my sister made, "I would rather feel the sting that see it or hear it" isn't that exactly what these people were doing. We as Americans would rather suffer the sting of the world than see it or hear it. See the dilemma is once you have the knowledge you must do something with it. There become two choices, you either take the knowledge and use it to change your lifestyle in one way or another or you ignore the information and rationalize your way back into comfort. Once you see the reality and hear the truth you have to deal with it. We as Americans and as Christians are covering our eyes and plugging up our ears because we want to continue in our comfort zone drive through of a world and not deal with what is happening right in front of us. We would rather eat that big Mac than deal with the fact that when we do we are giving our money to support Gay marriage whether we agree with it or not. This is just one of many issues our world is facing today that we as individuals have got to stand up and start being apart of. We have got to make our voices known. We must stop covering our eyes and plugging our ears out of fear and just plain selfishness.

We sit around and gripe about the state of our country but what are we willing to do about it. We must all start somewhere and I started today in the hot July sun at a McDonalds drive through in my hometown. Where will you start? You can make a difference if you just start putting your thoughts and ideas to action. Need help thinking of stuff to do, contact your local church or go to www.afr.net they have plenty of current things you can get involved in. Just do something! Stand up for what’s right and don't be afraid. Lesley Syfrett Hays