Fifteen bucks for a bag of belongings? One airline has announced that you can still check your bags at the ticket counter, but it’ll cost you. Suddenly you’ll have to decide between a chicken sandwich at a food chain and that suitcase with your sinus medicine in it. Either transaction will be a lesson in economics and efficiency. And from my last trip through the fast lane at a slow-food restaurant, it was obvious I wasn’t the only one with fallen arches!

Maybe we’ve let the mundane and mediocre grow in our garden so long that it’s harder to tell the weeds from the dandelions. Let’s hear it for efficiency! Let’s trade hand-outs for hands-on. Let’s start a crusade of compassion—so intense that we’ll forget what ails us and start thinking about the hurts of others. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s the right time. Showing Jesus to folks may be just as effective as telling them about Him. Either way He gets the credit and we get the balance. “Repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:47-48 NIV).