"If I acted crazy, I did it for God; if I acted overly serious, I did it for you. Christ’s love has moved me to such extremes. His love has the first and last word in everything we do. Our firm decision is to work from this focused center: One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat." 2 Corinthians 5:13-14 (The Message)
Yesterday in Sunday school we were talking about sharing our faith. I went through the very basics, defined what we meant and didn’t mean by sharing our faith, why, etc. But the really profound part came after "my stuff" was done and we just talked about it practically.
I kept drilling down "why is this so hard?" I am certain everything thought I was just repeating myself over and over again. In a lot of ways, it was a question none of us could answer completely. I mean, we know that we are supposed to share our faith… most of us get it that much. But something holds us back.
For me, I worry too much about "what will my friends think of me?" Will they think that I am stupid.. or worse, crazy? This morning I was thinking about this passage. Paul is telling us to do whatever it takes to get the message across to people. If we need to be labeled as crazy, then so be it. Christ’s love for me is crazier. That got me thinking… yeah, Paul… that’s easy for your to say. Then I did a little more reading and realized it wasn’t easy for him to say that. I re-read Acts 26 for the first time in a long time. That shed new light and gave new depth for me when I think about "losing my mind" for Jesus.
Stupid faith… as the summer wound down this year I said something in a talk that I am still thinking about. I said something like "I want you all to recklessly, stupidly chase the dreams that God has for you. Pursue it like crazy." And I am still wondering to myself… do I have safe faith that could barely be called faith, or do I have blind and stupid faith that moves mountains?
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