Wandering through the television channels the other night, I stopped on "Next Best Thing.”  Not a bad show all told.  But I was struck by the notion that a man was being applauded, in full force by hundreds of audience members, for impersonating Little Richard.  I said to my wife, (it is the incumbent duty of all husbands to scan television shows and make moral pronouncements about them to their wives), “Little Richard, now there’s a guy who is set for life for singing ‘Tutti Frutti, O Rudy’ a thousand times.  And here’s a guy getting applauded by hundreds just for pretending to be him!”  I’m not sure our culture has its reward and praise machine on the right settings.

     I also recently scanned over the ESPY Awards with a similar reaction.  These are ESPN’s version of the Oscars.  Sports figures recognized for excellence in their athletics.  “Aren’t they already rewarded enough?” my wife immediately received.  “I mean they get paid millions of dollars just to play games!”  LaDainian Tomlinson won best male athlete.  Tiger Woods won in 2002, and he was up again.  These guys really need to be recognized for what they do…

     At my church this Sunday, Mike Weiglein, our minister for children and youth (who sometimes reminds me of that youth pastor Glenn recently posted! Glenn Lucke, Being Cool Will Change Their Lives), gave a children’s sermon and asked the kids how it feels when the do something really great.  Does it feel like Tiger Woods?  When he makes that put and charges across the green pumping his fist?  What do you do when you accomplish something really great for God?  When you do what you know God wanted you to do, and you get it done and you see the results?  Is there a fist pump?

     Well, there’s probably not a Los Angeles theater filled with adoring fans.  There’s probably not applause.  You’re probably not on national television.  But there should be a fist pump in there somewhere.

     I passed a milestone recently.  I received my final discharge order from the military.  After twelve years in the Army Reserve, I’m a full civilian once again.  When I joined the Army in 1995 shortly after college graduation, I had little idea what I was doing.  I did it because it felt right.  Because when I prayed about it, I felt God saying “Go.”  When I asked trusted elders about it, they affirmed the call.  So I went.

     I thought I’d be in the Army Reserve for six years as an enlisted Soldier.  But God used the Army to call me into full-time ministry.  See, I hadn’t thought I’d get ordained.  I thought ordained ministers were boring and irrelevant (picture Reverend Timothy Lovejoy on the Simpsons).  It was in the Army that I saw that ordained ministry had a broad horizon of applications.  God and I made a deal…I’d get ordained as long as He didn’t make me boring.  So far it’s working out, depending on who you ask.

     I answered a call from God, and God used that obedience to open up other calls, bigger calls, louder calls that have led me to where I am now.  That’s pretty cool.  And now that the first call is totally finished.  I did what I was asked to do.  I think it deserves a fist pump.  Of course, I don’t say all this to congratulate myself, but to make a point about living the Christian life.  I hope you have found something to do for God that makes you want to give a big fist pump when you’re done.  Go ahead.  Answer God’s call.  And when the Sunday school lesson is over, when the youth mission trip gets home, when the 10 years of service in a crisis pregnancy center have come to a close, go softly into your closet of prayer, close the door, and dance across the room shouting “YES!! YOU TAGGED IT, MAN!! YOU TAGGED IT!” and pump your fist in victory for the kingdom of God.