(Title inspired by my favorite time of year in sports: March Madness)
Any time I start to feel like my life is normal, like traveling the world and meeting new people in new places is somehow mundane, The Lord reminds me…my life is anything but that. I am anything but that.
Today (March 4, 2014) was no different as I began my day singing from our guest house rooftop overlooking the mountains surrounding Kathmandu Valley. “This scenery is not mundane.”
God reminded me again of my not so normal life while I played Simon says with a classroom of 6 year olds that had no idea we were even coming to visit today. Their teacher dropped her lessons in a second to let us Christian strangers come into her Hindu classroom to play games with the children. “This is not normal.”
Another reminder came as I sipped coffee across from Jordan, a sister that loves me far more than I deserve, while sitting on rickety stools outside of the stand that’s becoming our regular caffeine indulging spot. “This life you live is not boring.”
God, refresh my eyes, renew my passion, refill my strength & joy.
He didn’t stop there as I again wondered out loud about the life I am living on the top stair of the rooftop at our guest house. I watched the boy on the rooftop across from me fix his hair and asked God how He came about picking me. Picking me to be His beloved. Choosing me to move from country to country meeting beautiful people in beautiful places. How He picked me to be here in Nepal today. Eating the same mountain of rice and curry I’ve been stomaching for months now, adding to the waist line I’d hoped would dwindle these past 9 months. Why did He choose me to live from a backpack and sleep on a hard mattress and wear everything I have to bed each night as I sleep in an electricity deprived freezing cold candle lit room with 5 people and 3 beds. And how, at the end of all the wonder, confusion, and questioning, do I feel nothing but lucky. Lucky to have more than nothing. Lucky to have food to eat. Lucky to walk for miles to be placed in uncomfortable conversation after uncomfortable conversation. Lucky to be put on the spot to sing a song and act out a story. Lucky to be 6 days in without a shower. Lucky to experience life without personal space. Lucky. I’m just lucky. My life is not mundane. My life is not normal.
My mind shifted from here to home. In 3 months I’ll physically be back where I began. Will my life become normal then? Will I live a boring life in a boring place with a boring job? Is this trip and this lifestyle what has made my life exciting? No. “You’re not boring because I [the great I AM, God] am not boring. You’re not normal because I’ve made you unique. I’ve created you for adventure and your next one will be even greater than this.”
I’ve had friends from home mention how exciting my life is compared to theirs. They get excited to catch up with me and hear what I’m doing, but aren’t so excited to share about their lives. It seems we’re both struggling with the same thing. This feeling of a mundane life, which can only become exciting through doing something else or being somewhere different. But neither of those things is what makes me or my life exciting, and it’s not what makes you or your life exciting either.
Do you know what the definition of mundane actually is? Yea, I didn’t know until writing this blog either. But I figured I’ve used it so many times in here, I should look it up. I’m glad I did:
“MUNDANE: of this earthly world rather than a heavenly or spiritual one.” The dictionary on my iPhone
Being created and loved by a perfect God is what makes life exciting. Falling radically in love with Jesus is what makes life adventurous. Living a life of abandonment is what makes life abundantly full of everything that can’t be bought.
I haven’t heard it described more plainly perfect than Donald Miller did in his Author’s Note to his book A Million Miles In A Thousand Years:
“If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers. You wouldn’t tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on to think about the story you’d seen. The truth is, you wouldn’t remember that movie a week later, except you’d feel robbed and want your money back. Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo.
But we spend years actually living those stories, and expect our lives to feel meaningful. The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either.”
No matter where I am. No matter where you are. No matter what we’re doing or who we’re doing it with. My hope is we choose availability and adventure over comfort and caution. My hope is we choose to live the better story.
I shared my love for God and His love for me with a beautifully tenacious Indian woman at an Irish pub tonight (still March 4, 2014). She asked me question after question and allowed me to share my life with her. She was determined in her questioning as I felt the wounds from her past surface in the depths of her eyes. I felt overwhelmingly ill equipped to be on the receiving end of her questions and as we neared the peak of our conversation I suddenly realized I had nothing for her. Of course I didn’t. From the beginning there was nothing within my own self I ever had to give her in the first place. So I told her she was beautiful and so were her questions (because they both really were). I told her I’ve asked God plenty of questions out of anger, love, and curiosity and He’s never once been offended or put off by any of them. I told her He’d love to hear from her & He wouldn’t be offended by any of her questions either. That even if she never knew Him personally, He’d love to hear from her and would be far better at answering her questions than I ever could be. I confessed, if my God were big enough for me to explain in full and completely understand, then He wouldn’t be a big enough God for any of us. She told me that’s the most beautiful thing any Christian has ever told her.
This morning God told me not to be afraid of not having answers to people’s questions. Tonight He showed me why. Apparently in the paradox of the Kingdom of God, it’s something He calls beautiful.
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord . “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9
Live a life of curiosity and questioning. Live a life of flexibility. Live a life creating space for the unexpected to sweep you off your feet. Live a life of freedom to its fullest. It’s what God created us to do. It’s what Jesus sacrificed His life for us to have.
