I had been washing my hair every day since I was really young. I didn’t ever miss a day and the idea of others only washing a few days a week was foreign to me. Now in the recent years, I had started a new shampoo and it had done wonders for my hair. It not only brought about increasing hair growth but my hair looked cleaner, felt better, and was just healthier all the way around. I loved it. Along with this, some of the top dogs in this market, were actually recommending you didn’t wash every day with this new regimen. And although the thought did cross my mind, I kept on washing.

Then one day I was with a friend of mine who had started this same shampoo. While visiting, she asked me if I still washed my hair every day and then told me she didn’t. She had listened to the talk that we didn’t need to—in fact, been recommended not to—and had decided to go without washing.

Well, if she could do it, I could too. I thought surely it must just be my OCD that was telling me I couldn’t. So I quit washing every day. Washing only three days a week was a game changer. I could sleep in longer in the mornings, I was ready faster, and I didn’t notice any difference except for the style being a bit different and my new strands a bit more fly away. I was, in truth, exuberant. Who knew life could be so easy? 

Until. One day I began to notice my new shampoo wasn’t working all that great anymore. Although my hair still appeared cleaner, it was looking less full. All my fly away new hairs, which I had grown so accustomed to, no longer appeared. I thought maybe it was just going through a plateau and I just needed to be patient. If so many others put claim on this, surely it would work for me too. But no. The longer I went with this routine, the more I noticed it.

My flesh rebelled. I had so enjoyed this period of not washing my hair—would I really go back to washing it every day? Could I? Would it really make that much difference? I tried to reason with myself. Maybe I was just getting older and needed to accept thinning hair. For days I thought about it and for an equal amount of days, I was too caught up in my own desires and ease of life to change. 

But one day I just decided to do it. I would go back to washing my hair every day, with the exception of one day now and then, and see what happened. It took a few weeks but I couldn’t deny the change I saw in the mirror. My hair again took on new life. Small hairs began popping up everywhere again. It began to look fuller. And soon my days were joined by all the fly away hairs again that weren’t quite long enough to fit in the clips. 

Although it took great effort to begin allowing time again for this every morning, and although there were days I did it quite grudgingly, I knew I would never go back. The results were not the same. The ease of not washing was not worth it to me. It was not worth losing all that I had gained.

I thought of this as I prepared for my day, and as I did so, the song “What Would You Give in Exchange?” crossed my mind. It speaks of what we would give in exchange for our souls. But the last part of the chorus caught my attention and held it. “O if today God should call it away, what would you give in exchange for your soul?”

I believe we all feel that nothing is worth missing Heaven for and if we knew God would call us away today, some of us would probably be scrambling. Yet it seems in this day and age there is an “easier way” that is becoming sought after. A way that doesn’t call us to give up quite as much of ourselves as we’ve known. A more laid back stance. A life of ease. 

When I first started not washing my hair as often, the thought had crossed my mind that what if my hair gets less healthy? But I did it anyway. After all, even one of my best friends was doing it. And when I saw less new strands I tried to tell myself I just needed to get used to it. 

And so often I think we have the tiniest twinge that what if this leads elsewhere? A small voice saying, “Please don’t go there.” An equally small voice saying, “But what if?” Yet that life of easy Christian living calls to us. And the more we give into it, the more it becomes our new normal. 

We no longer need to discipline our flesh to stay on the straight and narrow. We no longer need to take great care for others. We no longer need to have the commitment we once did. And we love it. This life of ease. Who knew Christian life could be so easy? We revel in our new freedom.

How long does it take before we realize the path we’re on and how different it is? Like my fly away strands which were the first give away, will we notice the self that has become so dominant now? The way it’s harder to love others, the way it’s harder to find true joy, the way it’s harder to keep my temper? Will we notice how easy it becomes to spread gossip, to criticize others, or to judge the sermon? What will be the first signs? Will we catch them?

Then—will we be willing to go back to how we were doing it, even when others around us say we don’t need to? Even when our own friends are recommending us not to? What will we give in exchange for our soul? Far too often we don’t see it as giving in exchange. Yet with a small decision, I exchanged my new strands of hair for the simple pleasure of sleeping in longer.

This touches me for I, too, have strayed a little. I, too, have wandered. I, too, have tasted just a little of that life of ease and enjoyed it. Oh that we can find a deep longing in our hearts for the fly away strands of Heaven. That we will be willing to take great care and not be willing to exchange anything for our souls.