Whole Hog or Die

   My dad had a few saying and "Whole hog or die" was one of his favorites. That means to give something all you have and don't give up, no matter what.   In many ways my father and I are alike.  I can see of lot of my mother in me too.  I am a composite of my parents.  My personality is more like my mothers but I am more like my father in my physical makeup and motivations.
  I have taken a "whole hog or die" approach to many things in life.  When I do I am successful.  When I do not fully commit to something, then things don't always work out as they should.  Once, when I was in the military, the base was hosting a horseshoe tournament and I decided to entry and not just to enter but to win.  I practiced at least eight hours a day  and was often seen practicing all night s well as during the day.  I not only won the tournament but I was national champion of Puerto Rico and All-Navy Campion as well.
  At Chowan College I took an Economics class under Mr. Helms.  I remember he was from Cherryville, NC and he graded different from every other professor.  In fact in his over two dozen years of teaching, no one had ever earned an "A" in his class.  I determined to be the first.  I was.
Unfortunately,    so few things in life have so motivated me to give myself over to it completely and I've had a half hearted approach to life.
  Several years ago, I began to realize that doing things my way wasn't getting me where I wanted or needed to be in life so I decided to live for Christ.  But if I live for Christ, I was going to go "whole hog or die".
  It's more than church attendance, bible study, or even prayer and it's certainly not about trying to be a better person.    I didn't seek out any offices in church nor did I try to live up to what most people consider Christian values.  I didn't have any preconceived ideas about what a Christian was supposed to be or about what the scriptures mean.
  I just started attending church.  The first thing I did was ask if I could mow the grass.   Then I spent much of my spare time clearing the overgrowth from the church property.  The land was in such poor shape it took two winters working 4 hours a day to get the job done.  Then I planted a pumpkin patch.
 I cleaned the church, did maintenance, changed the church sign,  planted flowers and bushes, laid timber to define the parking lot, cut trees, took care of the trash and recyclables, nd every other task that needed to be done.  I purchased my own equipment for mowing, my own tools for other jobs.  I never took one dime from the church for anything.
    No, I wasn't trying to work my way to heaven. Christianity doesn't work that way.  But if I'm not willing to serve and do the small stuff then how could God use me for the bigger stuff.  And eventually He did.  But I learned many things along the way.  I learned that He is good and faithful and when I needed Him most, He was there.  I've learned that in seemingly tragic events  that the only real tragedy is if we fail to use that event for His glory.  He puts us through things not only to strengthen us but because he knows we are strong enough to handle the events and know how to properly view things.
   A good example of that is my cancer.  How in the world is having cancer a good thing.  It is and I give God thanks for allowing me to go through this.  I've learned that we will all die of something sooner or later so the fact that I have a life threating disease is not the tragedy here.  It is just part of living.  We will all die of something.  That something is "sin".  Even the best Christian in the word will die a physical death because of sin.  That is the nature we were born with and that can't be changed.  We cannot live good enough lives to overcome that sin nature.
  But there is a way out of the situation.  God sent His son to pay the death penalty for us so that we don't have to die that second death.  The cancer doctors gave me three options in my battle with cancer and God gives us three choices in our battle with sin.
   We can ignore the problem and we may be lucky and not die of cancer but we will die of something.  Another options is radiation treatments and the third option is surgery.    God gives us three options:  We can ignore or deny or sin and eventually we will die.  We can turn over a new leaf and try to live a better life, maybe even become church members and maybe even leaders in the church.  We will still die.  Or we can take the third option, accept Christ, and live.
   In my battle with cancer there are things I need to do to speed my healing and to improve the quality of my life.  I don't have to do these things and I can live in my misery.  Or I can work hard and recover sooner.  The same is true in my Christian life.  I choose to serve Christ "whole hog".