Monday, May 14, 2018
600 - The Human Experience, Part 2
Spirituality Column #600
May 15, 2018
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
The Human Experience,
Part 2
By Bob Walters
We were talking last week about some old correspondence I
found that germinated from a business magazine piece I wrote in 2006 about
“Experience Marketing.”
The back-page
piece appeared in the August 2006 issue of the now long-defunct Indiana
Business Magazine. It was a brief, breezy
essay on how companies such as Disney and Starbucks don’t just sell a product
or service; they provide an experience hoping you won’t notice the price
they’re charging. Today, updated with
the hip inclusion of social awareness, it’s how the entire marketing world
works.
What I
wrote for the magazine was entirely secular, but when a friend from church saw
it and sent a quick note affirming my premise, my intended “short note” back to
him wound up encompassing an experience far larger than commercial marketing. The ensuing piece, which I had forgotten
about, has been in a drawer for 12 years.
The first part of “The Human Experience” appeared
last week. Here’s the rest.
“It’s not easy finding God, even
though He is all around us in every piece of our being. He gave us a compass (morality), a map (the
Bible, the Gospel) and a Savior – Jesus Christ (I can’t put Him in
parentheses).
“We have
the power to find God, and the freedom to reject God. But if we seek Him, find Him, and obey Him, in
Jesus Christ we can rest in the faith and joy of eternal salvation with freedom
from the sinfulness of this life.
“How’s that for experience marketing?
“The problem in this life is that
total 'freedom,' to many people, means there are no consequences. That would explain post-modernism but not
truth, morality, or the Gospel of Christ’s crucifixion, death, burial, and
resurrection. This all puts
responsibility into the Freedom equation.
So let’s accept the fact that we have the responsibility to use the
tools God gave us, and that it is our job to try to find Him and to help others
find Him, even as we know He is trying to find us. Atheists who think God does not exist; or
evolutionists who contend that God is merely that which we cannot explain, will
have a happier experience ordering a custom cup of Joe at Starbucks than in
accepting the reality of God’s love and salvation through Jesus Christ.
“God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are
more than an experience; they define life’s entire purpose. They are my faith. They are my lifeline. Anyone who believes in God but identifies
God’s “purpose for us” as just one part of the human “experience,” I think,
sadly sells human existence very, very short.”
Walters
(rlwcom@aol.com) notes that this correspondence was with
professional speaker and former Army Ranger Dale Collie. Walters copied “The Human Experience” back
then only to pastor friends Russ Blowers, Dave Faust, and John Samples, and study
mentor Dr. George Bebawi. Each returned
encouraging comments. Just a few months
later the first of now 600 “Common Christianity” columns appeared in Current
newspapers (2006-2015). Walters thought this was a good way to mark the
milestone. Happy 600th
column!
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