I’ve been “in church” for most of my life.
But for all my worship experiences with so many different believers in different understandings of faith… for all my reading and listening and asking questions and listening more… for all my studying of the Bible (I have a double major– one of those is Bible)… there are still some things I’ve never been able to reconcile.
One such thing: we can sometimes have this cute little thought about “doing faith”– it’s easy… a few properly worded phrases make an official salvation prayer, and if we rack up some good karma and tithe and don’t yell at our kids too much, and always show up to church with a smile… then we’re set. We’re doing our faith. We’re being Christians. Congratulations us.
(okay… that sounded more cynical than I meant it to… It’s just that…. i do think sometimes we live as though those are the points that comprise our faith and set us aside as believers. It’s an easy trap to fall into… one that fits easily in our Western society… but it falls short of that to which we’ve been called)
But I read the Scriptures, and I see that God has this crazy history of calling people to some pretty un-easy things.
And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets,who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.
Women received back their dead, raised to life again.
Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection.
Some faced jeers and flogging,
while still others were chained and put in prison.
They were stoned;
they were sawed in two;
they were put to death by the sword.
They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.
(from Hebrews 11)
See… when I look at the God who asked that of his people, I have a hard time thinking that he’s suddenly relented and said it’s totally cool with him if we want to pursue the grand American dream, with 2.3 kids and a white picket fence and a job that climbs up the corporate ladder and walks past the broken people… that if we just throw a couple of dollars at some nameless face asking for hope, we’re suddenly off the hook.
I don’t see that God being consistent with the one I read of in the Bible… I don’t see that life able to mesh with one that takes Jesus seriously when he says that if we want to find our life, then we must lose it for his sake…
I get it though… I get that it’s easier to live a life for God that gives us worldly pleasures as well– it’s something that my own life isn’t completely free from. I just have a hard time thinking it’s biblical.
Every once in a while, though, I get to meet people who get it.
People who are willing to take God up on his offer, to ask God to give them a dream that comes from His heart, and to follow wherever that leads them.
Such is where I find myself now.
I’ve been building a relationship with a team of four young, post-college women. And instead of getting married (ring by spring, right?) or backpacking through Europe (b/c that’s what we hip twenty-somethings do), or jumping into their careers, they are taking two years of their life to follow the dream God’s given them… a dream that says women shouldn’t have to believe the lie that the best they can offer the world is their bed services sold to strangers… a dream of the restoration of those women as they respond to the God who loves and heals and will restore all the years the locusts have eaten.
These young women I know… they’re heroes. They’re leaving home and family and friends to get on a plane and go to Cambodia for two years. Two years is longer than I’ve consecutively done anything (discounting my compulsory education requirement). But they’re making a commitment to the God who has made a promise to them. And they’re trusting that he’s going to do something beautiful.
Pray for them.
And while you’re at it, ask God for His dream for your life, too. I think you might be surprised… and challenged. But i also think you’ll really find your life in the process.
Thanks for this post Melinda. I am sitting in the Seoul airport right now with Amarja and Steph and we are flying out to Cambodia tonight 🙂 The journey has begun!