TOTAL COMMITMENT
by Les Parrott III
Can you imagine what would happen if all the married couples in America suddenly had total and absolute commitment to their marriages? The future of divorce courts would definitely be threatened.
Can you imagine what would happen if every citizen in American culture suddenly had total and absolute commitment to honesty? The drive to hire new police officers would be shifted to the need for furloughing a large proportion of them.
Can you imagine what would happen if every student, at every level, in the nation’s school system suddenly had total commitment to their studies? We’d have a generation of more self-confident and capable people, if not near-geniuses.
Total commitment raises the level of life. It’s the fuel in the tank of every human being who’s ever achieved anything worthwhile.
A Haitian parable is told of a man who wanted to sell his house for $2,000. Another man wanted very badly to buy it, but because he was poor, he couldn’t afford the full price. After much bargaining, the owner agreed to sell the house for half the original price with just one stipulation: He’d retain ownership of one small nail protruding over the door. After several years, the original owner wanted the house back, but the new owner was unwilling to sell. So the first owner hung the carcass of a dead dog from the nail he still owned. Soon the house became unlivable and the family was forced to sell the house to the owner of the nail.
The point of the parable is simple. If we leave the devil one small area in our life, he’ll return to hang his rotting garbage on it, making it unfit for Christ to live in our lives. Total commitment, whether it’s in our relationship to Christ, to our work, to our family, or to anything else, means dedicating every aspect of our being to the goals we’ve set.
The Apostle Paul understood this when he wrote to the Philippians, “But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).
