What Babysitters Think About

If you use the logic applied several days ago regarding the lawn mower definition, this sounds a little grotesque. If a lawn mower is one who mows lawns, a babysitter would - logically, by definition - be one who sits (on?) babies. Curious as to whether this definition stood up to the test of Dictionary.com, I checked it out.

sit (v) informal. to serve as baby-sitter for: A neighbor can sit the children while you go out.

I have to admit, I was a little disappointed. I have always been one to seek out things that are wrong with the English language. I love when things don't make sense, and those signs that require people to put up each individual letter separately make me crazy. I was really hoping that the definition for babysitter was going to be illogical, but apparently babysitting is a big enough part of our culture for it to be included in a dictionary definition.

Anyhow, this babysitter was thinking about something in particular to start this whole thing. On the way home from watching the girls the other day, I saw a church sign with one of those little messages. (Are those as popular where y'all are as they are here? They're everywhere here, and although they do require putting the separate letters on, I like them.) In any case, the sign said: "Elements of a Christian life: faith and charity." So, with about 25 more minutes to drive on my way home and having already decided that I wanted silence and not the radio, I started thinking about that. Is that all there is, really, to a Christian life? Is that what is all boils down to?

I looked it up, and "faith" is, as I expected, believing or trusting in something when you have no proof that it is true. Hebrews 11:1 says so. That's a rather simplified definition, I realize, but it really is pretty basic. If you have faith - in anything - you're believing in something that may or may not be true, but you are choosing to trust that it is. With or without proof, you have reason to believe it and live as though it is true. That's faith, and in living a Christian life, you have to believe that what the Bible says is true. You have to have faith that God loves you and sent His son to die for you to reconcile you to Him by forgiving you of your sins. You have to trust that by believing in Jesus and who he is, you are saved and are made right with God. You have to believe that you cannot live without Jesus....and that you don't want to. Whether you come to that belief through years of Sunday school attendance, one random church service one time in your life, or the prompting of the Holy Spirit, you have a personal testimony that makes you believe. That belief is what drives you to live the life you live, and it is what makes you do the things you do. Faith is obviously the first and most essential element of a Christian life. Without it, your life cannot be "a Christian life."

Now. Charity. That's defined as giving to someone or something that's in need....without consideration of what you may or may not receive in return. Charity. That's what Jesus' life was all about - selfless, always giving, always loving, and never thinking of what it might cost or what might come back to him in return. Scripture calls us to follow him and live our lives like he did....which, in its simplest form, is charity.

Granted, our lives are human and infinitely more complicated than two words can describe. The thing is, though, that maybe that should be all it's about. Sin is what complicates things, and sin is what makes it a big mess.....makes faith so hard sometimes, and makes charity so difficult. Faith becomes a science experiment requiring proof, and charity becomes a selfish thing done only for personal credit. A Christian life is not without sin, because regardless of what label we put on ourselves or our lives, we are still human. We'll mess things up and we'll stray from Jesus' footprints, but the thing that distinguishes us, I think, is that driving force of faith and that desire for charitable living. Without those, we're no different from anyone else.