Hoops

hoops

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s amazing all the hoops you have to jump through to keep a website going and make it “findable.” There’s Google of course, which somehow became the intergalactic ruler of the world wide web, so everything has to be geared so that it works best with their search engine stuff. Then there’s dozens of others search engines that you need to keep feeding and make happy too. And of course we can’t forget social media. Yikes, you could spend all day every day just trying to keep up with all the different sites and their various likes, posts or whatever everything is called. All to try and make your website “findable.” So that in our case when someone types in ”Martial Arts”, our school will be somewhere on that first page of results that pop up on their computer screen, phone, pad, tablet or whatever their device of choice. I spend hours working on this stuff, and it really makes me crazy sometimes, having to jump through everyone’s hoops in order to “market” our school. Too bad we just can’t teach Christian Martial Arts and call it good!

A lot of martial arts schools have hoops you need to jump through too. Of course every dojo including ours, has rules and etiquette as we have discussed in other blogs, but sometimes it goes beyond all that. Often there’s different equipment you need to buy at each new level, new uniforms with different colors to purchase as you progress, added programs and clubs to join that keep you paying more and more.

Aren’t you glad God doesn’t do any of that? He doesn’t require a green light on your SEO analysis. He doesn’t make you have enough photos in your text, or meet a bunch of criteria before you’ll show up on His page. There’s no new equipment or uniforms required, in fact He doesn’t ask you to buy anything ever!

Romans 6:23 says it best: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Notice it says the “Gift” of God is eternal life. If there’s one thing we all know (and love) about gifts, it’s that they’re FREE. If you want to have eternal life, you don’t need to do anything but receive it. No hoops to jump through, nothing.

Isn’t it funny that we all strive and stress over all kinds of things that don’t last and don’t amount to anything, and the very most important, lasting and marvelous thing we could every want doesn’t require anything – except to say “Yes!”

Have you said “Yes” to Jesus? If not, it’s the most important thing you’ll ever do, and will change your life in amazing ways that you can’t even imagine. If you have, you know the joy of life as a Believer in Christ. If you haven’t, if you’re really honest with yourself you know that something’s missing. Well that something is a relationship with Jesus that starts the moment you say “Yes” and receive His gift of eternal life. Still have questions, not sure what to do? Ask away – we’d love to help.

But for me – time to get back to work on the website…..   🙂