We bought a new printer two months ago. My printer was getting old and “cranky” and my office was cluttered with a separate fax, copier, and scanner. We were really pleased when we were able to purchase a sleek new wireless “all-in-one” that printed, faxed, copied, scanned, printed photos, and make fruit delicious fruit smoothies, on sale for less that $100.00! It really seemed like an amazing deal. That is, until the toner ran out…and ran out…and ran out again.

Two months later I have already spent more in toner than I did purchasing the printer. Every time my six year old hits the print button to show me a “cute doggie” it costs more than a trip to the zoo. Need a color copy? Sure, it will do it…but it would be cheaper to hire an artist to do an oil painting of your original. I find myself constantly turning down the default “use all the toner on a single copy” setting on the printer…but every time I restart my laptop, it just keeps coming back. What seemed like such a sweet purchase, and the “answer to all our office problems”, is now dubbed the “money sucking printer”.

I hate when things seem to be a “good deal” and turn out not to be. I wish the makers of my money sucking printer would have charged what the printer was actually worth and not chosen to make their money on “easy monthly toner payments”. I hate the “bait and switch”.

I realize that I often talk about the difficulties and struggles of following Jesus in my talks on Sunday morning at actionchurch. We talk about storms, disasters, and wanting to quit. I wish I could in good conscience offer the “raise-your-hand-and-say-this-prayer-and-Jesus-will-come-into-your-heart-and-make-your-life-all-better” brand of Christianity. I “wish” I could promise that “God will heal you and make you prosperous” ( if you just make a generous donation to our ministry :-) ). It would be so much easier to just “sign people up for heaven” and not tell them about the struggles they will face here on earth.

Instead, I can only tell folks ( like Jesus did) that “in this world you will have trouble“, but have hope, because “he has overcome the world.” No “bait and switch”. No BS.

Anything else is a lot like my money sucking printer.