CRAZY LOVE, CHAPTER 2
The titles of Francis Chan's chapters just draw you in. This one's called, "you might not finish this chapter." It's all about living your life with the knowledge that you could die at any moment. Does that sound morbid to you? I don't think so. I think it gives the everyday moments of your life weight and forces you to really examine what you're doing. Chan challenges us to really think about how self-focused our lives can be. We'll say that we believe in the brevity of life, but do we really live with this truth in the forefront of our minds? Do we allow it to penetrate our hearts and change our behavior? I'm realizing how much I like my nice little comfy corner of this world. There are times when I let God break me free from it, and at those times I catch a glimpse of a terrifyingly beautiful and free existence, but then I get sucked back into the American culture and sensibility. Let's face it, we Amercians make fun of death. Our movies, video games, and TV news broadcasts show it so much that we've become numb to it. We flit from one activity to the other and are shocked when someone close to us dies. But death could happen to any one of us at any time. God is in control of when and how we die. Do we really believe this? Do we live like we believe this? In 2008, I attended three funerals in the space of about eight months. I don't think I had been to a funeral in over a decade. Funerals will wake you up to what's important in this life, and I can assure you it's not our little plans and agendas that we constantly stress over.
So, what am I going to do about this? I'm not sure yet. Everything is still marinating in my brain and filtering into my heart and soul. Someone in our Sunday School class this morning flipped a common Christian saying on its head. He said that instead of saying that we put God in a box, we should say that we are in the box, and God wants to get us out of this box and show us so much more. I am afraid sometimes. I am afraid of what it would be like if I got out of my own comfortable, middle class, suburban box. I think God is waiting to explode all of my paradigms of what living the Christian life is supposed to be about. Am I willing to step out of the box?
2 comments:
I can tell you, one of the numbing agents for me is the TV. It's so easy to slip the mind in neutral and allow the world to program us through the TV. We need to seize the day and seize the moment. We are not guaranteed another moment on this earth. How can we make an impact for Christ without being sensitive to the leading of his Holy Spirit. We are made alive in Christ to live a life of faith and adventure! Take a look at crazy Job. He blesses God when everything has been taken away. Look at Paul's life and the men of faith in the Bible. What an adventure! Our world would have us believe that a life with Christ at the helm is "boring". The adventure is ready. What are we waiting for?
I totally agree. Those are the same kind of thoughts I've been having lately. John Piper says in one of his devotional books that watching so much TV and imbibing so much trivial culture shrinks our soul and cultivates a taste for what's trivial. I think this contributes to us thinking that a life totally surrendered to Christ is boring. Augh! It's hard to tear yourself away from it because it's so ubiquitous.
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