Being Real

I had the opportunity again to learn about being real in all situations on the weekend. It was Emily's birthday party and we had some people, mostly from the college campus and from Kilbirnie Corps....

The father of one child from Educare started asking all sorts of questions about how the military ranks work in the Salvation Army and asking about what happens if you come into the army with lots of qualifications and so on... Do you like get a better rank the more you have to start with and so on.

I told him that we are all equal. His next question was "So why do it?". Now by this stage I had the feeling that he might be taking the mickey out of us but instead of laughing it off I thought, you asked for it buddy and gave it to him....

"We do this because we are called by God to serve him in a full time and the college is the first step to that. We believe in God and trust Him implicitly." There was stunned silence for about a minute and then he said.... "That is that best answer anybody who is a minister or priest has ever given to me.". Thank you God that I didn't go with my first instinct to brush off this question as a wind up and give a half baked answer.

And yes I know this is the answer that we are supposed to give but it does not come easily sometimes and judging by his reaction, it does not come that often from those of us that profess to be followers of the living Christ.......