Have you ever had a sudden, powerful urge to use the bathroom? The kind where your bladder feels like a time bomb quickly ticking away?
It happened to me a few days ago.
It was morning and I had just tumbled out of a strange dream, only to be ferociously alerted that I had to go to the bathroom. I untangled my legs from the sheets and waddled over to the door, where I recognized the familiar whirring of the bathroom fan down the hall.
We only have one bathroom in our little apartment, and this particular morning we also had some guests staying with us. And, well, one of them apparently decided to take an early shower.
Now, I love having guests over, and I love that they shower…however, at this particular moment I was frazzled about my predicament.
I waddled back to bed, hoping I could fall back to sleep, or at least divert my attention. Everything liquid was coming to mind, though, so that didn’t work. I got up once more, waddling back over to the door to see if I could still hear the fan. Yeah, still going.
Back to bed. (This wasn’t actually helping, by the way, since each time I crawled in and out of bed I would put extra pressure on my already-pressed bladder.)
As I lay there, now ten minutes or so in prolonged discomfort, I wracked my brain to come up with some good Scriptural analogy for my situation. My first thought was that it was a lesson in patience, but then a more obvious theme became evident:
The sense of urgency.
Suddenly, I felt painfully aware of how urgent we, as believers in Christ, should be as it pertains to sharing the good news about Jesus. It should be like a burning within us, and our only relief when we can share such amazing news.
My conviction came when I realized I am quite often more in touch with my bladder than with my sharing of the Gospel.
How about you? Is your bladder your only cause for urgency in this life? Or have you grasped the fuller, deeper meaning of what it means to be a living example of Christ to the world?
After all, at some point our bladders won’t be functioning enough to seem urgent—and the Gospel will still need to be shared.
(I was going to make a Depends joke here, but I refrained…)
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”
– Matthew 24:14
“For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.”
– Matthew 24:27
jess leigh hanna 