Crazy Love: an Eye-Opener

I want to start off by apologizing for yesterday's pessimistic post. It had been a very stressful day, and the weather was just something I couldn't deal with at the time. I'm feeling much better now, and I'm not hating the snow quite so much at the moment.

Today's post is much more uplifting, I promise :-)

I recently finished reading "Crazy Love" for my Bible study. The book really pushed me to jump out of my comfort zone, stop caring about what others think of me, and to stop being selfish. Honestly, selfishness is something that I really struggle with, especially when it comes to my time. I love being at home and doing my own thing, and I realized that I love it way too much. God does not call us to a life of comfort or self-centeredness. I guess it took that book to show me that.

One of the last chapters of the book is chalk full of examples of people who lived radically for Christ. They made themselves nothing, taking the very nature of servants. Sound familiar? Yeah, Jesus did that too :-) And that's what I want to do with my life. It's what I've always wanted to do, but somehow I've lost sight of that lately.

Now that I've realized that I'm being totally selfish and need to reexamine my life and make sure I'm not being a lukewarm Christian, there is another dilemma: where exactly do I begin?

The author of the book, Francis Chan, explains that living radically for Christ means that we need to let go of our insecurities. We need to forget what is normal for people, or even what is normal for Christians. He used the example that he and his family constantly have other people living with them who have nowhere else to go. This may not be normal, but it is what God called them to do. So first of all, I'm going to try to break the mold and not be self conscious about doing things for other people.

Okay, so now I know that I need to ignore social standards, but that still doesn't exactly tell me WHERE to start. Francis Chan also emphasizes that we shouldn't make these huge plans of how we are going to serve someday. Instead, we should worry about it one day at a time. Basically, we should find places in our worlds every day where we can serve others, and show them the love of Christ. Whether it be at work, at school, at home...even in line at the grocery store, or on the road during rush hour.

So that gives me a starting point. I've decided to really make an effort here to start viewing myself as a servant. I'm going to try to find at least one random act of kindness to do everyday. the more anonymous, the better. So hopefully, these little random acts will become a habit in my life, and will evolve into bigger and better things. I figure, ya gotta start somewhere!

"Crazy Love" was a GREAT book! It really opened my eyes, and made me realize that my outlook on Christianity and my relationship with God was a little warped. I learned so much about God, and feel like my relationship with Him has changed. It was a really quick, easy read, but at the same time, was a very big challenge because of the way it made me examine my life and my faults. If you haven't read it, you should!!