Day 15

Today, we are at crossroads. One sign reads, "Respectable Christians." The other reads, "Radical Christians." One path—the clear, wide path— is for the well-bread, clean, decent Christians. The comfortable. The other—the narrow, prickly, rocky path—is for the growing, seeking, serving Christians. The committed. One way promises ease, community, but a fruitless, shallow life. The other promises dirty hands and scraped knees, but a Spirit-filled, meaningful life. And here we stand. To decide.

The journal continues...

The Israelites so desperately wanted a king—someone they could see with their eyes—like what every other nation had. They knew so little of what they had. With God as their leader, they could keep their beautiful lands and not have to see sons go off to war and daughters taken to serve in the palace. They had a leader who could see all and perform all and had perfect motives and a glorious plan. 

But still, they wanted to touch. They wanted life to be concrete, easy to understand, one that took work of hand but not a keeping of the heart. And so, they stepped off their solid Rock onto the slippery sands of the familiar, the easy, the explainable. The saddest part may not be the life they missed out on, but rather that they did not even know how good life could have been. They never knew their God. And, their children paid the price.

We have come full circle to modern day Christianity, where we too want to be able to explain our lives to a world watching in. Prayer has been reduced to merely before meals (if no outsider is in the room that we might offend) and to times of desperate need. But, prayer was meant to be the pathway to knowing our God. Paul says in Philippians 3 that he considers all things worthless in comparison to knowing Jesus Christ—

His power and His suffering.

The gospel is a great PARADOX, and so should our lives, our homes be. They only make sense when we look at the unseen—it is not what everyone else is doing; it is not what media or friends or even sometimes family and church is telling us to do—it is a life lived by faith in God, with Him leading. A family of faith. Will we be a family God can do His great work through or will we limit God and make Him come to our terms, to our generation, to our culture and force Him to accomplish His will through Providence alone?

My Dare:

To give God absolute freedom in our home. To know Him and His will and His power through prayer...Does He want me to make that purchase? Does He want me to start up my business again or trust Him to provide solely through Steve's salary? With my husband's birthday approaching, what are his true needs and desires? Seem trivial? I call it 'casting all my care upon Him'—freedom from burdens and stress—and a light to seeing God's power and wisdom as I rely. We were not made for a king—we were not supposed to rule—we were made to trust; we were made to be free.

It is not too difficult to find joy on those perfect days. Days filled with sunshine and all green lights. But, what about those less than perfect days, when a storm is brewing? Join me tomorrow as we learn to see every day under the umbrella of God's loving design.