Would Jesus drink Coke or Pepsi?

It was great to see two college friends, Jeff and Tena, as they stopped in on their way to Minnesota. It seems however and whenever you meet people, if it occurs at the heart level, it’s always easy to pick up where you left off. Such was the case in our visit yesterday.

We talked about our jobs, kids, and the increasingly visited subject as you age; health. But eventually the topic came to our career change, and we dove down from there.

“How did you do it?” “How did you know?” “How long did it take to get going?” “Where did you start?” The questions all had the same theme.

That theme is faith.

I recalled to them the day I realized I was telling 15 year old stories to my students. There was nothing fresh, nothing current, and nothing that indicated my faith was growing. I was only maintaining it, and not doing a very good job at that. This is how I knew something needed to change.

People in my tradition refer to having a “calling” to describe how they got into their vocational path. I know many who go back to a childhood experience and believed God told them to be a missionary, and they are living that out to this day. I don’t discount this kind of encounter. Sometime I wish mine were so certain.

There was a time when the WWJD (What would Jesus do) idea was in vogue. The assumption was that if Jesus were in my shoes, he would do things differently than I would normally do, and the challenge lay in determining what choices he would make.

There seemed to be a problem with the WWJD scheme. The situations were mostly moral in nature. What would Jesus do? He wouldn’t not go to church or be late to work or cheat on his homework. He wouldn’t steal or look at porn or feel up his girlfriend. Nor would he go 60 in a 55 or, depending on your denomination, drink caffeine or eat red meat.

If Jesus lived to be 45 instead of 33, what would he do to combat midlife crisis?

Changing the career direction of my life was not some kind of act of moral obedience to a divine command. It seems a whole lot more ordinary than that. It wasn’t so much about trying to figure out what Jesus would do if he was me, but more like him asking me what would I do.

I can’t picture Jesus owning a restaurant, but I do believe he is interested in my faith being alive.