The Path to Imitation
My husband loves to play video games. Well… he loves to customize characters, install mods (whatever those are), read about the game, and watch other people play it. He likes to fantasize about the best tech that would unlock the game’s full potential. All of this (for reasons I’ll never understand) is all very exciting, but there’s something I’ve noticed: only about a quarter of the time he spends “playing a video game” is actually spent playing the game.
This may or may not be related, but I’m sure we can agree that sometimes there’s just more fun in the planning than in the doing. This past Sunday, Kyle touched on this concept for a moment. He said that some people talk about doing the work, and some people do the work. Some people love to plan and (in honor of Valentine’s day) romanticize the idea of following Jesus.
I’m one of those people. If I go unchecked, I could spend days thinking and talking… and thinking… and talking. This isn't entirely bad. Neuroscientists have discovered a class of neurons in our brains that they have called mirror neurons. While other neurons are active either when doing or when watching, these neurons activate during both, as if watching and doing are the same.
These neurons help us learn, develop, and imitate what we see. It seems, however, that our brains may be too easily satisfied with watching. When it comes to following Jesus, our observations are meant to be springboards to imitation, but perhaps the longer we only watch and think and talk, the more we trick ourselves into thinking we're actually doing the work.
Just as Holden is no further in his game at the end of the day, we are no closer to the Father when we spend all of our time watching others do the work.
In Matthew 9:37-38, Jesus told his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.” This is a great verse that gives us a glimpse into Jesus' perspective on the work to be done, but before we pray, let's check ourselves and make sure we're already in the field.
-Heather
Heather Garrett serves on Regen's Worship Team and leads our Student Huddle with her husband Holden. She and Holden live in Girard with their daughter Chloe
