I have been striving to live life a day at a time… To daily have my hands open and ears ready to hear for what the Lord has for me. These past couple months, I feel have been a blob of thoughts unable to focus and today as I stay at home sick as the rest of the world around me is busy celebrating the ending of fasting month, I realize that I have been trying for the past couple months to look past today. I have been wanting to, as bad habits return, see the whole picture. These thoughts have bombarded me with thoughts, frustrations, guilt, defeat… but when I was living a day at a time, my life seemed so much more in order and satisfying.
For my birthday my in-laws sent me a book, “Radical”. The bad thing about me is that if the book is good, I don’t put it down. So today, since I am sick, that’s all I’ve been doing. Reading this great book on living a radical life for Christ. (Thanks C & J for taking A for me. I feel so much better just resting.)
I’ve been talking a lot about topics that are in the book with different friends and I love how this author, Platt, get to the bottom of things. You see Platt goes after the American Dream. That was my dream once… Going overseas was not. I always wanted a white picket fence with a big yard, children running around and a dog… As you all know that’s not what God had for me. And I just think… I would have missed the very essence of my faith, if I had chosen to not take that step of faith and go out on a date with P, who did not have the American dream, but was on his way overseas. God’s heart is for people… P was all over that from the first time I met him until the day he took his last breath… I, on the other hand, had to learn that.
These past couple months, as I struggled with wanting so badly to see the big picture, I feel I have also lost the one most important thing I had learned. Because I was so stuck on myself and wanting to know what was going to happen to ERP, I lost sight of those around me. Yes I did my “scheduled” things, but to go out of my way to be with people, to tell them about the love of Christ. I have failed!!!
As I think of this big picture concept, I am reminded that I don’t need to know that because God is already all over it and if I would just listen and obey, then I will eventually see the big picture. It may not be on this earth, but I will see it.
I’ve also thought in these past couple months how I am so comfortable. I have a car, a job, a great school for A, friends, routine… One may think live in Suburbia is comfort, but I think comfort is relative and to me… I am comfortable here. So I have been asking myself lately how the Lord would want to stretch me. No answer yet, but I’m definitely wanting to be stretched.
Some people tell me how I’ve been through so much and I’ve done my share and it’s okay to be comfortable… BUT as I look through scripture… following Christ is not comfortable. That’s what this book I’m reading about is talking about too. God didn’t call us to a life of comfort… God has asked us to throw everything away and follow Him. I’m not saying now I’m going to look for a jungle to live in, but I do want ways that the Lord wants to show Himself to me more and more in which then I could show His glory to those around me.
For so long I have believed in this Christianity of blessings and in many places that is all that is taught… When you believe God will bless you… if you ask HE will give… I remember a couple years back SC did a walk through the New Testament to talk about how following Christ is not just about that… it’s also about suffering and persecution… all for the glory of God!!! Why are we trying to sugar-coat the truth? Is truth not sufficient? Why are we so prone to make this like fantasy Christianity in which will actually lead them to not know truth?
I remember growing up going to church 3-4 times a week. My parents went every morning and still do to pray, when everyone else was sleeping. I remember going to revival meetings and falling asleep on my mom’s lap because it was going on for what felt like to me forever. I remember having cell meetings at our house or other people’s houses. And at the young age I was, I don’t ever remember thinking these people were not having fun. I mean they were, what seemed to me, hungry people for the Lord. My junior high and high school years were like that too. My church would have Sunday, Wednesday and Friday services. The Fridays would go on for hours and I think that’s when I grew spiritually… I remember praising and praying and sharing in groups… I remember after it was all done we would hang out my friends and I praising more… I would sit at the piano and others were playing other instruments just continuing the spirit that had ended for the night.
Why do I talk about this? Well, I just think of how everyone is about schedule now. Heaven forbid if the Sunday service went over an hour, is kind of the mentality people have now a days. Leaders want to accommodate for that and the attendants get frustrated if it goes over… we have plans for the rest of the day. In Acts… people sat in upper rooms for hours learning about Christ. Why is it that they had the attention span, but now people are all about theories of how people could only handle 20 minutes and then after that they tune out? Crazy… What then of all the people around the world that are risking their lives to learn about Christ, sitting hours at a time in a dim room, hungry for more? They are no different than us, but why could they sit for hours on end?
If we are not earnestly seeking for the truth… if we are not hungry for it… we will never know it!!!
Where is my passion? My hunger? My desire for truth? I like I stated before feel that I have reached this comfort zone and I feel the Lord asking me to walk out of this comfort zone. Honestly, it’s hard to think of another shift, but I want to obey. Take it a day at a time… So as I pray about what next steps I need to take… I challenge those of you who read this blog to ask God to take you out of your comfort zone… yes it is uncomfortable at first, but that’s what Christ asks us to do… Take up the cross and follow Him… Taking up a cross is no easy task. So are we going to do it?
