This is it (Not the Michael Jackson story)
Posted on September 10, 2013
I am an Incurable Fanatic.
I belong to a fellowship of the unashamed. By blood or sweat, dedicated to proving true everything we know about God. Willing to lose it all, forsake it all.
Just hours before I leave.
God, it’s so real.
Alabaster – Rend Collective Experiment
…
I love my family, I love them so much.
I adore my friends in Dallas. The commune. The adventures.
I cannot wait to reconnect with the people in Florida. I live to work at camp.
I am also obsessed with my ferret. She has a PHD, so it’s acceptable.
I love America. I love the way the trees explode with vibrant green in Seattle. I love the history and culture of Philadelphia. The way every animal in Florida wants to kill me.
Even still, today I am embarking to leave everything. To leave the American dream.
To sleep in tents and shower less than is comfortable. To spend long hours on flights to foreign lands. To get sick and eat food that I probably would never ever imagine.
To put it simple…
I am freaking passionate about seeing this world know change, know Jesus, know the hope of eternal life. I wish people could look inside this tattered soul and understand the weight of what I am absorbing.
Not a day goes by that I do not mourn the loss of not seeing my family grow older, my friends in Seattle live and learn what they believe, my brothers in Dallas take on the world, my family in Philly take on Yeehawville, my best friends in Florida be a light to the youth of America. I mourn leaving my homeland, my national identity as an American, I mourn it all.
I weep. I cry. I bite my lip and know… it costs something.
It costs more then people understand. For all the adventure and fun, there are so many more tear stained uncomfortable tired nights. Days when you work until your head hits a pillow and grin and laugh and weep because life is both good and ultimately filled with loss.
It is filled with seasons. And who are we to argue that a good season should continue and a bad season should stop? Is not the dark and cold winter still majestic and as necessary as the bright hot summer? People come in seasons. Sometimes I find myself hoping a season doesn’t end so much that I get lost in my head and lose the very season I’m in.
Why? Why would I give up the years of my youth to live in the uncomfortable? Why would I leave so often? Why am I so transient?
I am drawn along by a fanatical passion to stop the ills and injustice of this world. To reach people with the only hope that conquers everything from human trafficking to murder to hopelessness to burn-out.
Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.
Years ago He came to earth, a wanderer and a warrior. Battling against the darkest spiritual forces, the Son of God declared war on sin and the kingdom of Satan. He came down and lived a perfect life. As people gazed upon Him they found themselves drawn to the most beautiful of men. A heart so connected with the father. The heart of God. He saw the hooker and the outcast, and did not judge. Instead He poured out love. He let the lame walk and the lame follow Him. He did not cast out children. He did not run from lepers. Then He poured out His blood. We killed Him for the scandalous message of grace.
I weep just thinking of it.
Years ago I encountered Him. I saw His wounds. I heard His message. My life was forever changed. He has risen from the dead, He is coming back again.
In the old dusty book of Hebrews, it is said that our home is not on this world. Followers of Christ wait for a kingdom beyond that of gold and Earth. We have a citizenship in celestial palaces, ambassadors for beings far beyond the shackles of humanity and the flesh. Then it is said that some people looked so forward to this place, this dwelling of man and God, that they gave up everything. Persecuted, beaten, tortured, violently and brutally murdered. These followers of God went before us ,an example. In the end they didn’t receive a reward in their lifetime. The reasons being, this very world, was not worthy of rewarding them with.
Those of whom the world is not worthy. Something far greater awaited them.
Awaits us.
I sin, sometimes I absolutely suck at life, I sleep in too late. I eat too much. I laugh at jokes far more vulgar then I’m comfortable with. Yet everyday I am trying, running, racing, growing, to just get better and better. And now it is time to leave, time to go on a soul journey for the kingdom of God. To tell the nations about Him. I am so tired of wasted days and forgotten opportunities.
I am not going because it’s easy. I am not going because it is convenient. I am not even going because it is adventurous.
I leave because a man died for me. It cost so much. More then I will ever know. It cost Him everything to die for a selfish, filthy, incredible ungrateful man.
Then He made me new. Selfless, clean, thankful. He has made me a new creation, with a good heart.
Now, in the only way I know how, I am a messenger of this. I go to share the scandal of grace with the nations. To speak of a love so beyond anything we have known that it seems unreal and utterly insane. Utterly fanatical.
“If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow-creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large.”
? William Wilberforce
So it begins. September 10th is the first day of my World Race.
Today I leave for the Philippines.
Yet I can’t do that alone, I need people to bath me in prayer, to contribute financially to the 8000$ I have still to raise, to check up and let me know America is still around.
I’m asking if you’ve read this far to prayerfully consider, supporting this trip, consider being incurable. Fanatical. Dedicated to seeing the lost know Christ, the sick know healing, the hopeless know life. Maybe it’s through the World Race. Maybe it is at the office, the school, the home. It is time to be sold out, fanatical, and do crazy things for Jesus.
I’m going. I am tired. Terrified. Weepy. Desperate. Desperate to find God. To meet God. To know Him.
Will you go with me?
