I’m a box checker.
I love the feeling of checking to-dos off at the end of a busy day. It gives me a sense of accomplishment and fulfilment.
But, what if, for Valentine’s Day, I simplified my relationship with my husband down to a list of checked boxes?
Wash his clothes? Check. Cook his supper. Check. Talk to him for 30 minutes. Check. Make sure there are eggs for his breakfast. Check.
I could write out the list and present it to him for Valentine’s Day and then dust my hands off, go about my own agenda, and call it good. If all the items on the list are checked off, isn’t that enough?
No one wants a relationship like that!
A relationship based on checked boxes is wooden, robotic, manufactured, and hollow. It is one which is doomed to fail.
A real relationship, grounded in self-sacrificing love, forgiveness, humility, and steadfastness, lasts.
Believers often make the mistake of thinking that Jesus only asks us to check all the boxes:
Have a quiet time. Check. Go to church. Check. Give to missions. Check. Visit the sick or elderly. Check. Don’t do bad stuff. Check.
Then, we dust off our hands and go about our own agenda and life as if we’ve finished the list and there’s nothing more to it.
But Jesus never asked me to check all the boxes.
He asked me to come, deny myself, take up my cross, follow Him, love Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, abide in Him, and let Him live through me.
Those are things you can’t just cross off a list.
They rely on relationship.
A friend of mine shared that her daughter had been asking about being a follower of Jesus.
“What does it mean to follow Jesus? Do I have to like His posts?” the seven year old wanted to know. Her mother and I chuckled over the confusion, but what does it mean to follow Jesus?
I puzzled about the answer long after my friend and her daughter had gone home.
When Jesus said, “Follow Me,” to Peter, Andrew, James, and John, He wasn’t inviting them to check a list of to-do boxes. He was inviting them to walk with Him, eat with Him, live with Him, stay with Him, minister with Him, know Him, and learn from Him. Every aspect of their lives would be changed because of the relationship they would have with Him.
And to Jesus, we are not just lists to be checked either.
He always lives to make intercession for us. He loved us while we were still His enemies. He is always with us, even to the end of the age. He offers us the gifts of His steadfast love, forgiveness, and eternal life.
That’s the sort of relationship that lasts, and He’s inviting you to come, get to know Him, grow closer to Him, and be fulfilled by Him- not some empty list of check marks that will just go in the trash at the end of the day.
Won’t you be His valentine?
Sarah Dixon Young 