Bag of Commitment

I’ve started carrying a personal “Bag-O-Commitment” when I go out backcountry skiing. I got the idea from Greg Hill, a professional skier in Canada. He set a goal to climb and ski 2 million vertical feet over the course of one year and succeeded just last December. He had to average about 5500 feet of elevation everyday, which meant that he was doing over 10,000 feet some days since he couldn’t ski every single day. To put that in perspective, the highest peak in Glacier National Park is just over 10 thousand. Big Mountain is just about 2400 feet from the parking lot to the summit. You can do the math yourself but I’m thinking that 4 Big Mountains equals 1 average day for Greg.

As might happen when you do something crazy like this, it’s hard to find partners to ski with you. So he came up with a plan: whenever he went out he had a bag full of snacks that he would share with his ski partners. He gladly shared the food but it was given on a condition: they would have to commit to a huge day of hiking and skiing. The deeper they dug into that bag, the more vertical they would have to climb that day. But the cool thing is that everyone was excited about it! Greg was stoked to hand it out to get partners to ski big days and they were pumped to get the goodies since they were going big, skiing hard, and getting really good snow.

I think a lot of people look at having a relationship with Jesus as following this list of rules and regulations, like stepping into a box that traps us and takes all the fun out of life. For me, following Jesus is more like reaching into a Bag of Commitment. He’s not this figure that’s out there in space somewhere commanding us to do things, demanding that we go to church or read the bible or help old ladies across the street. Christianity is a journey that he invites us on and goes with us. Jesus keeps on knocking on my door, asking me to reach into his Bag. What I get out of the Bag is love and joy and peace. But the cool thing is I’m never expected to give anything back. I’m just invited to follow Jesus…but I am stoked to continue on this journey.

Peter is a good example from the Bible of someone struggling to accept Jesus’ Bag of Commitment. He was a pretty fiery follower and he put his foot in mouth a lot. One of his most shining moments really wasn’t: he tries to step out of a boat and walk over to Jesus who has been sauntering around the middle of the lake. But Peter just barely sticks his finger tips into the Bag and tried to pull something out. It just doesn’t work that way and he almost sank. Then when Jesus was killed by a mob later, Peter disowned him three times, claiming that he didn’t know him. But then something clicked about a month and a halk later and he went “shoulder deep” into the Bag. He spoke to thousands of people in Jerusalem about how they had killed Jesus and they needed to change their lives in order to ask for forgiveness.

Jesus is always here, holding out his Bag of Commitment, inviting us all to join him on a his journey, asking us to “Go for it!” Like climbing 10 thousand feet in a day, it’s not always going to be easy, but it can always be exciting.