Sometimes, I admittedly feel ashamed and "boring" when I try to do everything to take every opportunity before me. I often feel jugded and feel that others think that I'm being overly zealous in my belief in the need to live with ambition and as best I can as blameless ... For instance, I've been in many situations when people thought it was ok to cheat on homework, labs, or a test because "even the teacher wouldn't care", but have refused to and have therefore been poo-pooed for being too "careful". This is absolutely not to say that I have no fault in my life, but I do often find myself talking to others and reading their minds that I am just being "overly cautious" and "overly zealous" by scrutinizing the smallest parts of my life to see if they add up to the kingdom's calling.
When God blesses us and we start forgetting our dependency on Him because we are no longer in survival mode, our tendency is to become lukewarm. This is a serious downfall within our culture. We begin to pat ourselves on the back when we do a good deed and try to console ourselves with the thought that what we just did is enough already. We decide we have earned a day to gorge ourselves with what we please. This is a lie from the enemy to keep us from experiencing the fullness of God! We have to ask ourselves a few sobering questions: Have we truly applied ourselves? Have we half-heartedly given only what we could bear to part with or have we taken the brokenness of humanity as our own responsibility and given our lives? Did we do what we did so that we could keep our good name in society or because we actually cared about the situation and the people in it? Was our love for God the fuel behind our motives?
I often hear stories of other Christians in foreign countries who are literally spit on and trampled over daily, and would die to have an education and three solid meals a day, let alone the opportunities I have. This summer, by reading "Lioness Arising" by Lisa Bevere and by a couple of other circumstances, God has made me realize that I need to step up to the plate and stop apologizing for grinding against culture and injustices just because it makes me feel uncomfortable. We need to stop saying sorry, just because it doesn't feel good, for calling the world to live out the reality that life's bigger than ourselves. Don't ever feel sorry for making people feel uncomfortable by bringing reality to them that if they would give up their monthly starbucks runs they could save a child's life with their money. That taking the time out of their busy schedule to bless someone could actually make a difference. That trusting God by taking a day every week to fast could actually change their heart. That being honest in all your schoolwork actually matters. Being a godly leader (which I believe all Christians are called to in some form), I realize, has never meant being liked by everyone, and that is not the goal to stride towards anyway. No one ever enjoys being called out of their comfort zone, but its so often what we need (but must always be out of love and not judgement of course). When we begin to live the life that God has called us to beyond ourselves, we find joy, healing, and adventure. Living in comfort is boring. Want to know why? Because adventure is found outside of the land of comfort, and boring doesn't take risks!
We need to stop shoving our faces with our own self pity, and start looking first up, and then out. God has called you personally his love and delight, but in all its truth if that's where you stop, you're missing the other half of the story. God has called us to something bigger than what we know, and its not just about his jealous love for us, but also about how crazy he is about our brothers and sisters! I just heard a guy called Banning Leibscher say at the Desperation Conference: "God's not boring. YOU are boring because you haven't jumped off the cliff yet!" Funny, but so true. We find God boring because we are not willing to take our eyes off the mirror and our own abilities and look to the one who enables and calls us. If we will stop getting as close as we can to "good enough" and stop limiting ourselves and God, I believe He will give us a grander picture of what His gospel is all about and what it means to follow Him. The second we lift both our feet off the ground is the second we can't put them back, and that is called adventure.
Granted I am nowhere near perfect and have a great deal of growing and refining to go through myself, but I'm beginning to adopt the view and heart that those moments and areas of life we are given the choice to either follow the crowd and be accepted as relevant to our peers or raise the bar and risk everything are exactly those that God has called us to take hold of for his kingdom. This may all be a little scatter brained but overall, what I am trying to say is that there is so much more of God that He wants us to dive into, but we must first accept the challenge to jump. So let's do it!
"Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God." - Jim Elliot
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