Is Your Faith a Hobby?

Where would you look for a Christian magazine at a secular bookstore?  It took me seven minutes to locate the issue I needed.

I looked through the magazine display that covered one whole wall. I perused current events, arts, and philosophy.  Hmmm! No religious magazines. I stood on tiptoe rifling through issues on the top shelf.  I crawled around on the floor checking the bottom row. Ahhh!

Found.  Bottom shelf - ankle level - between women's issues and crafts. It didn't even have a category sign. Yuck! Is that the world's image of Christianity? Some kind of hobby only of interest to women, like knitting or scrapbooking?

This revelation pierced my heart.

For the message about the cross is foolishness

to those who are perishing 

but to us who are being saved 

it is the power of God. 

1 Corinthians 1:18

The news headlines read things like: War!  Poverty! Famine! Earthquakes! Turmoil!  Those were on the upper shelf. 

Top billing on the magazine racks went to self-improvement, home-improvement, and movie stars with messed up lives. 

The mish-mash of messages screaming from the shelves reflected the mish-mash of cries from around the globe. The answer to the world's problems was on the bottom shelf and could only be reached on your knees.  I didn't like the lack of prominence for the Christian magazine but perhaps the approach - on your knees - was right on.
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