It’s tennis season for my high school girls and I’ve been doing a lot of sitting. I think my rear end is kind of PLAID from sitting on that nylon-latticed lawn chair. A lot of sitting. And it’s been hot. I think we’re talking “hot cross buns.”

Isn’t it amazing how tiring sitting doing nothing can be? It’s weird, too, because my girls show me no sympathy whatsoever when we get home from a three-hour match and I’m telling the sweat-soaked girls how totally exhausted I am. Have you ever noticed that doing nothing can make us tired spiritually, too? Serving in the Kingdom? That’s how we get truly energized. That’s how we show our faith in Christ is for real. The Message phrases James 2:14-17 this way:

“Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” And walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup–where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?

“I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying, ‘Sounds good. You take care of the faith department, I’ll handle the works department.’

“Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove.” If I want my faith to show up in my life, I’m going to have to get up and serve. The last thing I want my life to be is “outrageous nonsense.”

Meanwhile, back in the lawn chair, I guess if I want to get revved up during the high school tennis season, I’m just going to have to get up out off the hot cross buns and play a few sets. Actually, I think that might embarrass my girls even more than talking about my plaid rear end.

Rhonda Rhea rrhea@juno.com –Speaker, radio personality, humor columnist, author of the fun books: Amusing Grace, Turkey Soup For The Soul–Tastes Just Like Chicken, Who Put The Cat in the Fridge, and I’m Dreaming of Some White Chocolate. Watch for High Heels In High Places In 2007. Www.RhondaRhea.net