Double Dog Dare of the Week: WWJD - The "Micro" Edition

It is often said that “God is in the details”. This means that the true beauty, quality, or significance of something lies in the small, intricate details, emphasizing the importance of paying attention to even the seemingly minor aspects of a project, situation, or creation.

And so it is with the way God calls us to live. It’s just not the big commandments like “Thou shall not kill”. It’s also the accumulation of the little things we do every day that are also important in how we lead our lives.

Several times each day, we are presented with “micro” decisions that impact not only our own lives, but the lives of other people around us. Sometimes, we blow right past these little forks in the road, ignoring them completely. Other times, we may realize we made a bad choice, but for some reason/justification, we take the easy way out.

This is where those WWJD bracelets come in. I’m old enough to remember when these colorful wrist bands came out back in the 1990s. They were EVERYWHERE!

Of course, WWJD stands for “What Would Jesus Do?”

This “challenge” is often applied to weighty moral quandaries that arise in a person’s life.

However, the Double Dog Dare of the Week this week is to apply this “WWJD Challenge” to the “micro” decisions I alluded to earlier.

For instance, imagine it’s Friday evening, 5:30, and you had to rush into the grocery store to grab a few things for dinner. It’s cold and raining outside. You’re exhausted. The grocery cart corral is like 10 cars away from where you are parked. Do you make the effort and push your cart all the way to the collection point so some poor teenager doesn’t have to do it later? Or do you just tuck it in the upper corner of your parking space? What Would Jesus Do?

Here’s another: you’re at a restaurant with your family. It’s Saturday evening and you are starving. You haven’t eaten all day. You ordered an appetizer of mozzarella sticks for the family to share. There’s only one stick left. Your spouse is clearly eyeballing it. So are you. The restaurant is packed tonight, and it might be HOURS before the waitress brings out your meals. What Would Jesus Do?

One last example: You’re stuck in rush hour traffic on a surface street. Up ahead, you see a car that wants to pull out of a McDonald’s into traffic. Nobody is giving an inch to him. You’re already late as it is. If you let this guy in, you’ll probably get stuck at the next red light. All you want to do is just get home as quickly as possible. What Would Jesus Do?

Now, none of the above examples are probably life or death situations. If you choose NOT to do the “nice” thing, it’s not a mortal sin. I’m sure that even Mother Theresa would think twice about snatching that last mozzarella stick under the right circumstances.

As I wrote above, these tests are “micro”. But, when you start adding them all together over the course of a day or a week, or a year, or a life, they do start to say something about you. What do you want them to say?

So, this week, as often as you can possibly remember to, I dare you to ask yourself, “What Would Jesus Do if there were only two squares of toilet paper left on the end of the roll?”

Remember, God is in the details!