Endorsement

ByHal Hammons

One time in the queue for Expedition: Everest, I saw an advertisement for “Yeti tinned meats.”  The review called it “tasty, sanitary, and compact.”  The review was from “Hal.”

Needless to say, the review — and for that matter, as far as I know, Yeti tinned meats — is bogus.  I have never given my endorsement to any food product. (Still waiting to hear back from Pepsi on that front, by the way.)  It’s another example of “Disney magic.”  The gremlins in my magic band told their computer servers I was in the room, and they slapped my name on an ad.  Chuckles all around.

It made me think, though, about the “endorsement” I give to hundreds of products, venues and events just by showing up.  Perhaps it is not conscious.  Perhaps I would take the “endorsement” back if I thought it was being taken seriously.  But that’s not usually the way it works.  Wearing an “I don’t approve of social drinking” T-shirt every day for the next ten years will not undo ten minutes of sitting at the local bar.

My job as a Christian is to “endorse” Jesus.  Nothing I do — personal time, work time, play time, whatever — can be allowed to interfere with that.  Prioritizing my influence will occasionally mean doing something unreasonable — kind of like “going the extra mile” (Matthew 5:41).  In a perfect world, it would not be that way. But Paul was willing to permanently forego meat to preserve his effectiveness in the gospel (1 Corinthians 7:13).

I would hate to forego Expedition: Everest.  But you gotta do what you gotta do. 

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