A few days ago, the Lord began a great work in my heart and I’m so euphoric over it that I want to share some of my thoughts with you. On the last day of December I began reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan. Though I’d heard many of my squad mates rave over it, I never imagined how utterly and profoundly it would change my life when I finally opened its pages.
The subtitle of Crazy Love is “Overwhelmed by a Relentless God”, and overwhelmed is certainly the right word to describe my feelings after reading this book. In it, Francis Chan reminds us of the absolute incredibility of our God and how ridiculous it is that he actually loves us. His words are especially convicting when we ponder our own half-hearted commitment to a being that created us, loves us infinitely, and can provide perfectly for us. He calls us to live like we actually believe those things. While reading I was reminded of another quote I once read by Frederick Buechner. I’ll quote it here in the hopes that it convicts you as much as it did me:
“If the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter and the Last Supper is the Mad Tea Party. The world says, Mind your own business, and Jesus says, There is no such thing as your own business. The world says, Follow the wisest course and be a success, and Jesus says, Follow me and be crucified. The world says, Drive carefully – the life you save may be your own – and Jesus says, Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. The world says, Law and order, and Jesus says, Love. The world says, Get, and Jesus says, Give. In terms of the world’s sanity, Jesus is crazy as a coot, and anybody who thinks he can follow him without being a little crazy too is laboring less under the cross than under a delusion. “We are fools for Christ’s sake,” Paul says, faith says – the faith that ultimately the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men, the lunacy of Jesus saner than the grim sanity of the world.”
I can hardly find the words to describe the freedom and enlightenment I found when reading this book. It was as if I’d been stuck in a rat maze my entire life, knowing there was something beyond the greed and ambition and selfishness of the world and occasionally catching glimpses of it but unwilling to actually do anything about it.
In other words, I was a lukewarm Christian: proclaiming Christ with my mouth and doing good deeds, but my heart and my life were not fully in God’s control. If people looked at my life, they would not have seen anything to truly set me apart from anyone who did not know Christ. I was accustomed to that life, but how could that possibly be right? Christ said that the world will hate and persecute his followers, and I was neither hated nor persecuted. The world accepted me as one of its own. However, my perspective radically changed with the words of Francis Chan.
And so, with the New Year before me, I decided to make a change. I want to live like the creator of the universe stands behind me. I want to live in a way that turns heads and incites questions. I want to stop living in a way that asks, how much is enough for God, and start asking the question, am I giving everything? If I stood before his throne today, would I be ashamed? I think too often the answer is yes.
So I began to write, hoping to create an oath in which I might cement these new beliefs. This is what I wrote.
This is not a New Year’s resolution. This is an offering. This is a promise I present to my Father, my Lord. This is a plea for all the pain, bitterness, greed, selfishness, pride, stress, and fear that clings to me to be cast off by one fell swoop of my Creator’s hand. I know who I want to be in my Father’s kingdom and there is no room in it for darkness.
I want to be foolish.
I want to be mad as a hatter, crazy as a coot – to be a lunatic.
I want to be crazy enough to fall to my knees in dreadful awe before my God.
I want to be crazy enough to let the tears flow.
To look more people in the eye.
To forget the fears of this world because I am blinded by the glory of heaven.
To gaze bright-eyed upon more sunrises.
To be ridiculed and scorned because of my faith.
To give far more than I think I have to offer.
To love in a way that moves mountains and crumbles walls.
To raise the white flag of surrender every stubborn day of my life.
To fulfill the Scripture of 1 Thessalonians 5:17.
To stand unshaken in my faith, a woman of God, before the cruelty and apathy of this world.
To arrive at the next year knowing that my life is radically different than before because, and only because, I love my God so much that it hurts.
I truly believe that God is calling us, all of us, to live a life that seems foolish to anyone who does not follow the Christian faith. To me, it is a terrifying call because it means surrendering security, acceptance, and pride. But I’ve already found that on the other side are joy, peace, adventure, trust, wonder, and unimaginable love. A life yielded to God is a worthy life to live.
I hope you’ve found inspiration within my words. I hope you take them seriously because I mean every one of them. Our God is crazy, guys. Why aren’t we?
P.S. I posted a video blog on Vimeo a few weeks ago but forgot to post the link. Click here if you’d like to watch it.
