We all Need the "t"!

It was just before the service was about to start. I had given him a set of my books. He leaned forward from his seat behind me and ran his finger over the author’s name on the book - my name. In a friendly, teasing spirit he said I needed to have a “t” in my last name. We share a very similar last name, you see. He’s a Johnston, and I’m a Johnson. To be the best I could be, I would need the “t.”

At the conclusion of the service I told him I had been thinking about what he said. I told him I decided that he was absolutely right, that I do need a “t” in my name. Because if I did have a “t” in my name, I would always have the cross. He quipped he’d been trying to tell people for years that they need the “t”! I agreed with him that I had been doing the same. Another similarity is that we both have been full-time pastors.

That may be where any similarities end. My friend is a very tall, black man. I am a very short, white woman. But it really doesn’t matter if you are man or woman, black or white or anything in between. Your last name does not need to be Johnson or Johnston, but you still need to have a “t” in your name. It needs to be part of you - the real you - your identity. To be the best you can be, you need the “t”! The “t” found in Christian.

A writer and bishop from the third century wrote these words in a letter to his friend:

“It is a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world. But I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and good people who have learned the great secret of life. They have found a joy and wisdom which is a thousand times better than any of the pleasures of our sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They are masters of their souls. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are called Christians. . . and I am one of them.”

All Johnsons don’t need to have a “t,” but all Christians certainly do.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24 NLT).

Have you taken the "t"?