Are you watching or doing?

A while back, my middle daughter misbehaved and as her punishment she was not allowed to go outside and play with her older sister.  While the oldest girl went outside and played, she went and got her chair and sat next to the sliding glass doors that face our backyard and watched her older sister play outside.  From my wife's report, she watched with great delight, and was even excited about what was going on outside, even though she wasn't really participating.

Seems crazy, but that's what we do quite a lot.  We get really excited when we see someone else working hard and accomplishing great things for the Lord, even though we aren't.  I read  awhile back that we can get the same feelings of accomplishment simply watching someone else do something, even though we don't do it ourselves.  The worse part is, that it can actually decrease our motivation and desire to accomplish something because we already have that feeling of accomplishment.

This is called living vicariously.  It is the act of feeling as if you are experiencing or taking part in someone else's life.  I don't want to live this way.  To just celebrate what others are doing for God and never doing anything myself.  I hope that you don't either.  Let's make sure that we aren't just watching, but that we are doing!