Jesus Really is the Difference.

Last week I was able to enjoy five glorious days away from the world sailing the seas.  And yes, it was great.  I had never been on cruise before, but I have to admit, I am hooked now.  Our graduation celebration in the GLAM office!Back in May my ex-boss/mentor/friend, Niki, and I graduated from seminary with our Masters Degree.  It was a glorius day after four long years of reading, writing and encouraging each other along.  I honestly did not think I would ever see the end, but we did.  Not only did we finish, but if I were the boasting kind, I would say that we finished well! ;)

Anyway, we jokingly said in May that we should do something to celebrate.  One day when she was at my house we saw a commercial for a sale on cruises and we decided we should do that.  However, a few minutes of talking about it, nothing happened.  Two months later we thought about it again and before I knew it, the room was booked!  This was our ship!We had a great time doing nothing from Thursday to Monday.  Seriously, we did nothing we did not want to do.  Pretty much we spent all our time eating, sleeping, laying out and reading or exploring the fun things on the ship.  We had a really relaxing time that the both of us needed.  It was a great time, but I walked away a few lessons learned.  While most are funny, there is one that will stick with me for a while. 

So, without further ado…Here are the 5 Things I Learned From My Cruise.

Yummm!5. It is totally OK to eat pizza and or ice cream for breakfast.  Seriously.  I mean, they leave it open 24 hours a day so why not?!?  True story, one morning I had ice cream at breakfast time and a box of cereal at lunchtime.  Love it!

 4.  Interior rooms are the best.  Hands down.  We booked an interior room (meaning we did not have a window, so we could not see the ocean.) and I was a little worried at first.  I pretty much pictured this small little closet at the bottom of the ship.  However, it wasn’t!  It was this glorious room right on the midlevel of the ship that was the perfect avenue for sleeping.  We had plenty of room (yeah, I was shocked too!) and the best part?  It was so dark when you turned the lights off that you could sleep like a baby.  There was no pesky light shining through when the sun came up.  As a matter of fact we slept in almost every morning because we didn’t know the sun was up!

Yeah, it will suck you right down!3.  Whatever you do, do not flush the toilet while sitting on it.  Wow, that toilet packs some serious power when flushing it!  I mean, wow.  Every time I flushed it I felt like I needed to hold on to the towel rack or the sink, so I would not get sucked down!

2. They give you a map for a reason.  Who knew that a cruise ship could be so large with so many places?!?  I wondered why we were given a map before we got on.  12 floors and too many places later, I fully understood!

1.  The difference is Jesus.  When we were on the cruise ship we saw a lot of interesting people.  Most of the people that caught our attention had way too much to drink and had way too little discretion.  We saw people who spent hundreds of dollars purchasing alcohol and yes, some of them even offered to buy us something too.  Creepy.  Also, we heard multiple people talking about the hundreds to thousands of dollars they had lost in the casino.  My mind was blown.  I could not make heads or tails of what these people were thinking!  The last night of the trip, Niki and I were getting ready to go to dinner, and we were talking about these people.  I asked her, “are we just too poor to have the desire to waste that money or are we just too smart?”  She quickly replied with, “Both!”  After a few laughs I pointed out a few differences in the way we think and the way they think.  She added in and said that the difference was Jesus.  All our hope, joy, love, blessings and everything else comes from Jesus.  We do not need an excess of alcohol to make us “feel good” and we do not need to waste thousands of dollars in a casino to try to make a few bucks to feel successful.  As cliché as it sounds, all we need is Jesus. 

What does this have to do with you?  When you compare yourself to the world, is there a difference?  Do people see another “worldly person” or do they see Jesus?  I am not telling you that you have to remove yourself from the world and things in it, but I am telling you that we are called to be different.  We did not jump off the boat when people got drunk, we simply chose not to participate.  We did not judge them for what they did, we simply chose not to do and act the same way.  We loved them, talked with them, we just chose not to be like them.  Paul tells us in Romans 12:2 that we should not conform to the world and do the things that they do, but we should be transformed.  The Message paraphrase does a great explanation of this verse, “Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

When the world looks at you, do they see a person that has been drug down to their level or do they see a difference?  Do they see Jesus?  He really is the difference.