Get Sirius and Serious
December 1, 2018
True confessions of a non-black Friday and Cyberspace Monday shopper: I caved this year and bought myself a Sirius XM radio subscription for “the lowest price ever offered!” A couple of years ago I bought a brand new car which came with a free Sirius subscription for a year. However, I never listened to it because I feared becoming hooked and then having to pay an expensive monthly subscription once the year’s free trial ended. During the whole year of eschewing Sirius radio, many people I knew, family and friends, had a subscription and were obsessed with it and declared, “I can never go back to not having Sirius!”
This past Thanksgiving Day, while gathered with family, I was enlightened as to how many of my nieces and nephews had a Sirius subscription and then enthusiastically encouraged me to get one. After hearing them out, I finally raised the white flag of surrender and subscribed for one year at the “lowest price ever offered!” I can see why people are obsessed with it! Non-stop holiday music, religious talk shows, news streaming, talk show radio, and many other channels abound!
So, the other day, I was listening to a Christian radio channel, whose host can be brutally honest with those who call in for advice. The Christian counselor proffered wisdom to an advice seeking caller, who in turn responded, “I’ll try!” Immediately the counselor said, “You’re trying stinks!” OUCH, I said with radio silence. And then the counselor went on to say how the words, “I’ll try” are noncommittal and leave an out to getting the job done. Apparently, as I did some casual research of this phrase, the idiom, “I’ll try to do my best,” has become poisoned. Doing our best is not synonymous with getting the task done and it’s much better to say, “I’ll do it! I’ll get it done!” The experts go on to say, doing your best is not enough, but finishing the job is.
It made me think of how many times I’ve uttered the ‘I’ll give it the good ole college try’ and it made me wonder how committed I was to getting the job done. And the very next day, as I was reading, of all bible passages, I Chronicles 28, I was struck by the two times David told his son Solomon how to go about building the temple:
Be careful now, for the Lord has chosen you to build a house for the sanctuary; be strong and do it.
I Chronicles 28:10
Then David said to Solomon his son, “Be strong and courageous and do it.
I Chronicles 28: 20
And nowhere in the Bible do we read that Solomon said, “I’ll try to do my best!” No, he did it (built the temple) and got the job done!
In the future, I will not only continue to seriously avoid the Black Friday/Cyberspace Monday onslaught, unless I receive another good deal on Sirius, but I’ll be serious about saying, “I will do it” instead of “I’ll try!” I will do what God asks me to do!