If there’s anything I’ve learned about following Jesus, it’s that he doesn’t want us to live a typical life.
I’m being serious—and you’ve probably heard this a million and one times already. It sounds simple enough, and it should be simple. Somehow, it seems the more we think about living an extraordinary life, the more we talk ourselves into being content with not taking risks and not stepping out into uncharted territory. Maybe it’s the world telling us to seek stability first and have a safety net before doing the crazy thing. Maybe it’s the fact that faith and risk always have to go hand-in hand. It’s an intimidating reality, and the more uncomfortable we get, the more we try to save ourselves. I think that’s human nature. And that alone keeps us from actually experiencing how big God really is.
I used to have this misunderstanding that God was content with our salvation, but now I know he actually wants us to have a life. My friend Nathan gave me a good understanding of what this means when he shared his perspective with my squad. I’ll try to put it to good words: Once we decide to follow God he gets pumped because he plans all of these awesome things to do with us. Imagine him saying “let’s go talk to this person and encourage them together!” or “lets go to this place and love on the people there” and he gets excited like any father would! Some things he asks to do with us can be a little out of our comfort zones, but think about it like a father riding on a jet ski and motioning to his son or daughter, “c’mon lets go for a ride!”. You ultimately have the power to decide whether or not you’ll step out with the faith that you’ll be taken care of. And it’s totally okay if you decide not to. He doesn’t get upset, just disappointed—and not in a way that we think. Disappointed like a father would be, saying “dang it, I really wanted to do that with you, but let’s find something that you’re more comfortable with and I’ll show you that you can trust me”.
A couple of nights ago I had one of these moments with God where I didn’t want to do what he invited me to do. We we’re having squad worship with a team from Ohio and Indiana, and God started telling me about somebody in the group who was ready to be baptized. The best way I can explain how he was talking to me was this analogy: if my brain was a mailbox, all of a sudden God began putting all of this mail in that mailbox. It totally wasn’t from me, it was from him. And he was wanting me to get up in front of all of these people to tell that one person that God was inviting them to take that next step in faith and make a public declaration to him. There wasn’t a doubt in my heart that this was from the Lord and I knew deep down there was nothing to be afraid of—still, I had fear. What he was asking me to do wasn’t safe. It was outside of my comfort zone.
And he was okay that I didn’t speak up and do what he asked.
He wasn’t mad. He didn’t make me feel guilty. He said “that’s okay, it will happen anyways.”
And you know what? It did!! The next day, somebody from the Ohio team said he wanted to be baptized, and later than night another person from their team got baptized.
That’s the thing about God. His work still gets done without us, but he wants us to be a part of the adventure. He wants us to do extraordinary things that don’t seem to make sense sometimes.
I think it’s funny how we live in a day and age where being a Christian is seen as ‘boring’ or ‘comfortable’. We do not praise a boring God. My squad leader, Taylor, captures it perfectly when she says “If you want a life that’s exciting, follow Jesus! If you’re an adrenaline junkie, follow Jesus!”. She has a point. A lot of the time it’s me who’s looking at God saying “that’s too wild for me to do”.
And of course, he meets me with grace, but I know how excited he gets when I actually walk in obedience and do the hard things that he asks. He loves it when we live dangerous lives and pray dangerous prayers. It begins with the little stuff, like getting in front of a group and saying the hard things. It eventually turns into big things that are way over our heads and too big for anyone to humanly achieve—that’s when God loves to show us how he shows up.
And he does show up, even if we don’t.
Lately I’ve been asking myself for practical ways to step away from a typical life and into an extraordinary, spirit-filled life. If anyone has any insight on this I’m happy to hear! Let me know what the Lord has spoken to you on this topic. I’m all ears! For me, I think it looks like walking further into obedience. And maybe that means I need to defeat some pride along the way.
I’ll keep you all updated on this specific topic, because I have a feeling there’s going to be more to learn down the road.
TO BE CONTINUED…
