I know what you're thinking...."wait, what? What is this crazy lady talking about?" Yeah, I know. We're not supposed to talk about the good news like that....it's blasphemous! Let me clarify.
The gospel of Jesus has ruined my self-absorbed, red blooded American, commercialized life.
After honestly and prayerfully reading my Bible and such books as The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne, Seven: an experimental mutiny against excess by Jen Hatmaker and Radical by David Platt....my heart is being changed. I am learning so much about what it really means to take Jesus's words to heart and actually live them.
I grew up in church, so I've heard the words of Jesus my entire life. I went to Sunday School, I was in the church choir, I went to youth group. I know the Lords prayer and Psalm 23 by heart and all the words to all the hymns and worship songs we sing in church. I was a good Christian girl and I thought I had it all together. Well....I don't. Following Jesus is so much more than knowing what to say, or what to do. It's the attitude and the reason behind what you do, the love that propels you to give and to go. It's not about bigger and better but about becoming smaller, becoming more real.
Shane Claiborne puts it well in his book The Irresistible Revolution......"But we live in a world that has lost it's appreciation for small things. We live in a world that wants things bigger and bigger. We want to supersize our fries, sodas, and church buildings. But amid all the supersizing, many of us feel God doing something new, something small and subtle. This thing Jesus called the kingdom of God is emerging across the globe in the most unexpected places, a gentle whisper amid the chaos. Little people with big dreams are reamagining the world. Little movements of communities of ordinary radicals are committed to doing small things with great love."
If that is true, call me a radical. An ordinary radical who wants to get at the root of what it means to love, and to get at the root of what had made such a mess of our world. It is a contagious revolution that dances, laughs and loves.
"Conversion is not an event but a process, a process of slowly tearing ourselves from the clutches of the culture" Shane Claiborne
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