Are We Snowflakes?

In 2008, Disney/Pixar released an animated movie called WALL-E. Because of rampant consumerism and environmental neglect, people turned Earth into a garbage-strewn wasteland. Humanity had to be evacuated and now lives on giant spaceships. Part of the storyline is the sad reality that in the centuries since leaving Earth, passengers onboard the starships have degenerated into helpless corpulence (that means really fat) due to laziness and microgravity. You see, people didn’t have to do anything, because their every whim is catered to by advanced machinery. Now, that doesn’t sound familiar at all, right? I mean, we don’t walk because we have scooters, cars, buses, subways, trains, etc. We don’t cook because we have Uber Eats and Doordash. When we do “cook,” we mean throwing something frozen into our microwave, slow cooker or air fryer. Hey, we cooked it, right? We sit behind a computer all day at work and then take the elevator down to the car garage and hop into our car. Soon, it will be a self-driving car, and we won’t even have to bother ourselves with that distraction. Pssshhh…driving. That’s so banal.

Let’s face it. We have become soft. Our grandparents and great grandparents would be so confused. What? You don’t have get ice from the ice guy to put in your ice box? You don’t even have to get up to change the channel on the TV? 

I mention this because it snowed again yesterday, and it seems today that whenever it does snow the populace panics! All the bread and milk at the grocery store is wiped out. I don’t know. I guess people really love to have French toast during snowstorms. The level of general alarm that our newscasters and weathermen foster is extraordinary. Every time there is a chance of snow it quickly becomes the storm of the century!

I am not that old, and I remember walking out to my car after work and clearing six inches of snow off my car and slowly creeping my way home. I served a church in Maine for nine years. We never closed once. Not on a Sunday. Not during the week. We lived in New England! This just in…it snows in New England in the winter. Always has – always will. Can you imagine if everything shut down when it snowed in Alaska? Or Newfoundland? They wouldn’t go to work or school from October to May! Look, I want everyone to be safe, but I believe we have become soft. Snowflakes if you will.

My concern is that our laziness may now also include our faith. Do we read our Bibles like our grandparents did (even the YouVersion app on our smartphones)? Do we attend church with the regularity they did? Do we share the gospel with others or are we afraid to offend? Do we hide our own faith from friends and coworkers because we fear being teased, mocked, or excluded? Has our version of Philippians 4:13 become, “For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. [Except those things which are hard and demand something of me that I don’t really want to do].”

I hope none of us find ourselves standing before the Lord one day (someone who walked everywhere He went, ate whatever was available, was beaten and crucified), saying, “I was going to go on that mission trip, Lord. I was going to teach Sunday School. I was going to share the gospel, but it was too hard.”

I leave you today with a couple of verses to encourage you not to be a snowflake. Remember, 2 Timothy 1:7 says, “…God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.” So, 1 Corinthians 16:13 reminds us, “Be on guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong. And do everything with love.”

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