Is it you or me?
There have been a few people in my life lately who have asked me if they have lost their minds because they are trying to follow Jesus. They even go so far as to dismiss themselves as "nuts," and I have started to wonder why. Is it because the world looks at us with a skeptical eye? Is it merely because Satan hisses doubts as questions of our grasp on reality? Or could it be that we just can't explain what has happened to us since Jesus? It is easier to think perhaps we have lost our grip on reality and are living in some fantasy than really feel the pain of our sinful past, or worse, the pain of watching other we have led down those paths or at least encouraged. It is easier to poke fun at ourselves than to challenge others to consider their own need to change.
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I am making a conscious effort to not speak that way about myself. I am not nuts, I have not gone crazy, I am not losing my mind, and I am not living in a fantasy. It is neither as easier, nor as simplistic as any of those thoughts. My life, my mind, my spirit, my desires, my hopes, my priorities, my ambitions, and probably much more, have all been changed as I have begun to follow Jesus. Not all of it has been purposeful. Some seemed to change on their own while some behaviors were choices.
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I could probably, fearfully, deny the Spirit had a part to play in these things and try to tone it down for the world. One the other hand, and this is my position, I am so astonished, still, that God's grace would be extended to me, that I want to shout it from the roof top, take a full page ad out in the newspaper, tell everyone I love (and maybe even some I don't).
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If I am crazy, let me die crazy in love with God's grace. This is the best life I could ever imagine. Amen.
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