Maybe you’ve heard the old bit about the difference between being ‘dedicated’ and ‘committed’. It’s made its way through many a program talk at your local club or has been the cute story of at least a half a dozen sermons you’ve sat through in your life. To be sure most of us have heard it before, but I think few have ever moved from an easy unattached existence into service and further past the motivational broo-ha-ha of such fodder into a meaningful purposed life.
If you think you know this little bit or have never even heard it before, keep reading for a radically transforming thought. The story goes - there is a difference between being ‘dedicated’ to something and being ‘committed’ to it. We might say we are a part of some organization or we believe in some cause – we might occasionally lift a finger to help or even write a reasonably sized check for its support. We might say we are ‘dedicated’ to some purpose, but the question comes ‘are we committed?’
The analogy is said, “The chicken is dedicated to breakfast, but the pig is committed.” That is to say, the chicken gives something to the effort, but what is the relative cost – life goes on otherwise unchanged. However, the pig gives SO much more ~ bacon and sausage come at the cost of the very flesh and life of the animal. Its involvement in the effort is total and final.
Now somehow, this little concept is suppose to motivate us to reach deeper in our pocket or spend a little more time/effort in sacrificing for our specific cause, but the truth is no one truly wants to be the pig. So story #fail. The difference here is one of non-religion to religion, non-believer to beyond believer, apathetic loser to zealot. No one wants to sacrifice even part of their life, much less everything that they are in service to something that no one seems to value in the first place. I would tell you there is only one who ever really did this and it is not enough to ‘act as if’.
Of course when I speak of the one, I mean the One – Jesus, the Christ. He, who left the glory, majesty, and splendor of an eternal state of being to become just like you and me. He, who came to live a momentary life of eternal fulfillment, ending in a death to account for our lack of concern, which we all too often try to address with stories about breakfast food or cute little internet top 10 lists.
His life was not only about teaching, but about fulfilling God’s eternal law and purpose. His purpose was to both show us and give us a life filled by a relationship with God. His resurrection and return to His place of glory is the reuniting to the Father of those who will but believe. Such faith within us provides an assurance and abundance of life firmly rooted in purpose, one that no checklist of religious observance can ever provide and with which no empty ignorance or ambivalence can ever compare.
So here’s what I say about 'the difference between dedicated and committed', skip it. Understand that it is not about ‘dedicated’ or ‘committed’. It is about ‘purposed’. The dedicated vs. committed appeal relies on a reordering of your priorities from the ground you are currently standing on, new wine in old wineskins as it were. You are guaranteed to burst in the process. It assumes you have the power to somehow change yourself – go ahead, make that one hair on your head change colors (and grey doesn't count). You just can’t do it, no matter how dedicated you act or committed you try to be, without a better understanding of where you are and some radical change from outside your situation, you will be stuck to your ways.
The better way to think of this little life concept can be summed up in the word – ‘purpose’. Skip the false tip of the hat dedication, forget trying for the white knuckle / jaw clinching commitment and understand that you are in fact ‘purposed.’ There is no great plug-in here to the breakfast analogy. This is so much more than that. Imagine one specific item that was created solely for one intent and had no other use than that for which it is purposed. Without it, what it was meant for is lost and without what it was meant for it becomes otherwise worthless. Find one of those on your breakfast plate sometime and let me know what it is, cuz it ain’t biscuits I’m talking about here.
This is a two fold expression of the very existence of every single human being. First, we are created for a very specific purpose AND second, without continual fulfillment of that purpose we lack the very meaning of our lives, wasting away day after day in empty action. God made us to know Him. Inside us is this little empty spot we either keep trying to simply ignore and tap down with our modest dedication to ‘faith’ or even worse we work so hard to fill with our commitment to religious observance that we burn up ourselves and our relationships. That little empty spot inside us craves for and will be satisfied by only one thing ~ a genuine and ongoing encounter with the One who made us.
So like I say, skip the dedication and commitment, be purposed. Know that your entire existence is meant wholly and solely for a continuous direct relationship with the Lord and without that you are a useless clump of flesh. Out of that understanding and relationship will flow expressions of worship and service that will far surpass anything you could ever do or become from the apathetic state of mere dedication or the false angst found in forced commitment. Life is about passion, it is about desire, it is about purpose – without it the heart aches and the mind is numb. Don’t settle just to dedicate your life to the Lord, or even try to force yourself to commit your heart to Him with empty words – find your purpose in a true relationship with Him through Christ in each and every breath of life.
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