One Crazy Irresistible Radical

There was a huge storm here Monday night. You might remember it because it’s the same one that demolished Moore, Oklahoma. It swept across that state, roared into ours, and broadsided my home, and subsequently, my husband and son as they drove home from Wil’s first night on his first job.

On Tuesday it rained. All day.

I went to the grocery store Wednesday. In line at Aldi, I was behind a woman pushing a cart and pulling a walker. She had some trouble unloading onto the belt. Behind me and my week’s worth was a woman with only an arm full. In the parking lot was a homeless man who asked me for a ride somewhere, and money.

Thursday I had a little email exchange with one of my son’s teachers who had treated him unfairly.

Friday I had a meeting with a woman from my church. My last meeting with her felt like an inquisition instead of a friendly getting-to-know-you lunch shared by two potential friends and daughters of Christ.

During my walk yesterday morning I saw a lawn crew beginning work on the neighbor’s lawn. The man in uniform was waving his arms around at the man in dirty jeans and grubby white tee-shirt. He kept turning this way and that as he barked orders at the Hispanic man who was desperately trying to keep up – with the physicality and the language.

Today as I was driving toward the farm around the corner from my house I saw that their goats were on the road.

What was your week like? Did it include selling all your possessions and giving the money to the poor? Did you just return from a week in the Amazon tracking down lost tribes so that you could share the gospel? Did you “take India for God” by rescuing an orphan from the sex-trade? Maybe, oh I know, maybe you put the finishing touches on your translation of the New Testament into Marshallese.

No?

None of that?

Really?

Well, what good are you?

Seriously.

I. Am. So. Tired. Of. This. Message.

You know what I did this week? I prayed for my husband and son. Urgently. Authentically. Desperately. And with the understanding that in God’s sovereignty I might lose them all. I thanked God for His bountiful provision, His faithful protection, and His sovereign license. And I interceded for people whose children are dead.

I trusted God that there is purpose in every day. Even rainy days that make you want to cry. All day.

I helped a lady unload her grocery cart and let another go ahead of me in line. Then I apologized profusely and wrestled with God because all I had was a debit card and an unmitigated standing order that I WILL NOT GIVE RIDES TO STRANGERS.

I blew it. And I asked God’s forgiveness. And found it.

I prayed. And prayed some more. And went in faith. And was blessed.

I did nothing to intervene in the human drama common to my community. I wished a uniformed man a good morning, and hoped that it would be…for the sake of the man who had lost his dignity.

I knocked on a neighbor’s door to tell them their goats were in the road.

I won some. I lost some. But none of it was insignificant. It was exactly the week God planned for me. And there is nothing in His plan that is insignificant. I did not have to go looking for something significant to do. There was no need to seek out something radical to make me “really” a follower of Christ. I just had to breathe in and breathe out.

I want you to think about your week. For me, the most radical things God asked me to do were to give up my place in line, forgive someone who hurt me, overlook an offense and seek a humble attitude, give over everything I own and the people I love to His care, fling myself prostrate at the altar for people I don’t even know, act in love toward a neighbor and be happy anyway!!!

What about that is not radical?

Why does that have no value to the American church right now?

Why does radical have to look like it’s all about me? (I give. I go. I do. I build. I teach. I serve. I lead. I adopt. I rescue. I share. I. I. I. I do these things to prove to others that I am really a follower of Christ. So…follow me.)

Why isn’t my common daily obedience an act of crazy love?

Why hasn’t loving my family, submitting to my husband and keeping my home become an irresistible revolution?

What do I have to do to prove to the church that I’m not a fan?

When is it good enough? When is it, simply, enough?

And who is taking care of all that God has entrusted to me while I’m off on some search for significance by being a crazy irresistible radical?

I wonder this. Do you wonder this? Or has the desperate attempt to keep up with the new Jones’s suffocated you with the fear of failure? Or have they (these crazy, irresistible radicals) convinced you that you’re not really saved or you’d be proving it…so prove it!    

I had a fight with my small family last week. It was a doozie and all of us were in on it. At the end of it I felt that nothing I did mattered - to anyone.  I didn’t sleep. I didn’t pray. I fumed. I plotted. I drafted speeches in my head. But in the wee hours of the morning I heard the voice of God. I heard Him say, “This is your reward”.

This.

This. Is. Your. Reward.

And I understood that we don’t have to make God see. He sees. He sees every struggle that comes from a heart that is desperate to get it right… just… one… time. (Please, Lord!) He hears every word formed on our tongue that we don’t say. He knows we desperately long for a world where it’s OK to give a homeless man a ride – or where there are no homeless men. He feels every beat of our heart when it is turned toward someone else’s pain. And He is pleased for us to understand that even the neighbors' goats are important. He sees all this because these were the appointments He planned for our days. He was watching to see what we would do, how we would respond, what we would learn, and how each of those things brought us back to Him. Because this is all about Him. His plan. His appointments. His ways of being crazyily, irresistibly radical.

Live your life. Be faithful. Be kind. Be gentle. Be meek. Be humble. Bite your tongue. Obey. Win some. Lose some. Confess. Repent. Start again. Surrender. Struggle. Let go. Hang on. Lead. Follow. Just do life.

Just.
Do.
Life.

There is nothing more radical than simple daily obedience and walking in “the way”. Leave the opportunities to God. And as 4 year old Nathan Parizek says, “You know it was a good day if you didn’t hit or bite anyone”.

Go. And as you go, don’t hit and don’t bite. Then teach someone else the secret to your success.

Be blessed you crazy irresistible radical!! 
 

(With all due respect to those whom God has called to do other crazy, irresistibly radical things which look different from our crazy, irresistibly radical things!)