Just last night I burst into tears and said, “I want to go home.”
Brian answered back, “we are on our way to the trailer now.”
I sobbed, “No!!! I want to go “home” back to our house, where it was comfy, where I do not have to fight with mice, bears, lynx, mosquitoes, flies, cows, creepy guys in the bush, out houses. Back to our “nice” house.”
I really mean it, I do not always like my life and the strange and wacky things I get to do.
Okay, I once had one dear Pastor friend come alongside me and after watching my life for a while (months) she said, “while you are not crazy, you do live in a land that contains a lot of craziness and it swirls around you.” I will agree with that statement, my life has a degree higher than normal of craziness.
You simply have to read the Bible with it’s strange stories to know I am not alone. In light of many of those stories, my life is no more “special, adventuresome, blessed, different or strange” than some of theirs. I know many people who live a life similar to mine (the end of this blog has a couple of great examples).
I agree that not everyone’s calling is the same. You cannot walk in my shoes and I cannot walk in yours. But our purpose will be the same if you are a follower of Jesus. We are in the same army. I might be a scout and you might be a gunner or infantry, different positions but in the same army.
“He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” Mark 16:15 These are Jesus’ words to His disciples, to His followers. If you are a follower of Jesus those are your marching orders too.
You too can live this life of adventure, blessings, crazy, and different, it is the life God created for us to live. Do not believe me?
You can talk about Jesus in a grocery line up, in a bank line up, at a drive through, your neighbour, to a supermarket clerk to anyone you meet. You are commissioned to do this…. Trust me life gets exciting when you exercise this commandment!
Have you ever in a worship song, lifted your hands and sang the words, “I surrender all…..”
Have you ever voiced out loud something like, “Lord wherever you want to take me I will
go…”
Have you ever said, “God if you will please do this……………, then I will give you my whole life, I will live my life totally for you.”
Well then, you too have made an agreement to follow God. You see when we verbalize any of those above phrases, when we make deals with God, what we say in our words, we had better mean them! God will test you on them!
I had to hear the following words many times in order for me to actually grasp the meaning:
“You cannot say “Lord” and mean it if you say no to what He is asking you to do.” (Henry Blackaby)
It is a misnomer to say that Jesus is the Lord of your life and then say “No” to Him. He cannot be Lord if you are the one stating what you will and will not do for Him. News flash whoever is saying what they will or will not do, is the one who is in charge and more often than not, dear Christians have taken God off the throne of their lives and put themselves on it.
“I’m not comfortable doing that.”
“I have a family to think about.”
“I could never leave my job, my country, my church, my………………”
Way too many of the sentences I hear about why followers of Jesus will not do something is “I could never….”
God has equipped you for the task, you can do it! He will help you! That is what it is all about. God wants to help Himself to your life, you will be the hands and feet of God, bringing a bit of heaven onto earth. God’s original purpose for man was to have heaven and earth meet. He wanted relationship with mankind, to walk with Him daily and daily He and Adam would meet.
I was listening to a video from Israel with an Israeli Jewish believer talking about how “Christians” talk about their walk with God.
He said that when Jesus said to the fishermen in the boat, “Come follow me,” they immediately jumped out and left everything to follow Him.
I have always wondered why? What was it about Jesus that made them drop everything, leave everything and follow a stranger?
He said that when God “speaks” to you, it is the Word of God. When we talk about the Word of God we are talking about a person, Jesus. When Jesus, the Word of God speaks to you, touches your life you are never the same. Never!
Jesus cannot touch you as the Word of God and leave you standing there unchanged. When the Word of God comes into your life, and into your spirit, you know, that you know that you have been touched by God. Nothing can ever be the same after that, not ever.
I, me, Jane, have been changed by the Word of God – life will never be the same for me, not ever. When my God says, “do this………” and I call Him Lord, I have to do it, no matter if it makes sense to one other living human being or not, whether it seems crazy or even "normal".
So much of my life has been based on God saying “Do this…..” and that is where the craziness begins. God never, ever, works in human terms, He never consults humans for a plan, He comes up with His own totally bizarre scenario and makes it happen.
I listened to Phil Calloway this morning talking about a prison ministry who took up a collection for the poor folks in town. These are hardened criminals in jail. They have the opportunity if they are lucky to make up to $4 per day. The Word of God visited these men, in jail, they are changed, they can never be the same. Imagine my shock when the collection these men raised totalled $1,000.
I am not allowed to share the details of a story I heard about of a woman, a woman who was visited by the Word of God, Jesus. I shall be as vague as possible to try to shelter her, if anyone ever learned of her life, it would be in imminent danger.
This woman has spent a few years living in a country where #1 – woman are not supposed to be in public, #2 she is white and blonde and that sure stands out in the crowd, #3 – her faith alone would get her killed as she lives in a country that persecutes Christians. This woman has such constant struggles outside of her door that she refuses to go outside her home unless she has spent the whole morning with God in prayer.
She needs to be so in touch with God that when He says “duck, move, run, stay still” she can hear clearly. Her life and those who depend on her require it.
She does not have to live this way, she could move, she is free to. She could go where it is safe to walk as a woman outdoors. When you meet this woman, you are struck by her glow, her smile, her humor and her joyfulness. This woman radiates the God who has invaded her life. She loves much – she rescues others in a country where it is illegal to do so.
The stories she has of how she has been protected, sheltered, loved and the miracles that follow her and the people she rescues are more than you would believe.
This woman is not sad, not fearful, not stressed – she is a person who has been changed and when her God said “go”, she said, “yes Lord”. He is using her to change the world one person at a time in an area that is so dangerous for her that it looks absurd from a human perspective.
I met a lady today at the laundromat. I did not want to go do laundry but went anyways. As I was waiting for the dryer, which was taking an unusually long time (could have been God’s hand in it), this lady opened up to me. She had found herself in a horrible position, through no fault of her own, living in her car. She was not complaining, she was not asking for hand out’s. Rather her comment was something like, “ although I might look all together on the outside, you never know when it could be you living on the street, or in your car, you just never know.” She said this as she told me that she had bought a homeless man a burger at MacDonalds when she herself was homeless. She filled me in on many details of her life, having lost her husband and raising her only child herself, and the circumstances that brought her to where she is today. She needed to talk, she was lonely. I had the wonderful privilege of talking to her about God and Jesus, letting her know she is never alone. She has a faith, and she knows about God, but it needed sparking today. God gave me a couple ways to let her know He was aware of her plight.
I left her with a hug, a phone number and the promise that God knows and has not forgotten her. She cried.
Like I said, you have no idea where today your walk will take you. To the supermarket, to the mall, to a coffee lineup, to the laundromat – be attentive to God and look for that person who is waiting for you to come by because they need to see a miracle today. That miracle just might be you.