Director/actor Woody Allen is known for a lot of quotes. But maybe his most famous quote is this one. Anyone want to guess what it is?

"Ninety percent of life is just showing up."

But Woody Allen is famously wrong. Ninety percent of life is what we do AFTER we show up.

Why do we want to believe Allen's computations so badly? We eagerly embrace Woody's calculus because it takes us off the hook for all but ten percent of our lifetime of screw-ups, fall-flats, and melt-downs. It is easy to just "be there." It is much harder to be there for the long haul, the hard times, the big tests, the final curtain.

Just "showing up" at your wedding might get you married, but it doesn't build a living, loving, fighting, mortgage paying, in-law juggling, overdrawn, children challenged, lifetime relationship.

Just "showing up" at the birth of your child might make you a "parent," but it does not make you a changing diapers, up-all-night, learning dinosaur names, cheering at rain-soaked side-lines, doing Algebra homework, enforcing curfews, saving for college, Mom or Dad.

Just "showing up" at church every Sunday morning might make you a member-in-good-standing, but it does not automatically put feet on your faith. G. K. Chesterton used to say that "Just going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in your garage makes you a car." To be a Christian takes action; it takes a day-to-day commitment to follow Jesus wherever he leads…