Our recently purchased house has a sun room. The Blonde loves it and spends a lot of time in that room which has great wicker furniture and plants, lots of plants, her new hobby.
I was hanging out in this room last week and two little boys who are neighbors came walking down the street. One was pushing a scooter and the other a bicycle. Both of these young men had nothing on but athletic shorts—no shirt, no shoes. After I saw them pushing their scooter and bike up the hill portion of our street I saw them come back by on the scooter and on the bike at what I’m sure was the speed of sound.
These boys were having fun. They were without concern for bodily injury and, wow, do I miss summers as a kid. These boys had no worries, no plan for what they would do at the end of the street where there is a stop sign and crossing traffic, full speed ahead, right?
I’m not a kid and I keep my shirt on. I don’t even shower with it off, but I still have a sense of freedom, I live without anxiety or worry. God’s got this, whatever “this” is.
Jesus told me that His burden is light, He told me that He gives rest, “Get away with Me and you’ll recover your life” (Matthew 11:28- 30, from The Message).
Jesus told Me, “Everything is possible with Him” (Matthew 19:26).
So, if those things are true, and they are, why are we so uptight and nervous all the time? Why does the church think the goal is to keep the doors open and the lights on - there has to be more right? Where is faith, where are the risks, where is mission and purpose, taking the Good News of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8)? When does the plane leave because I’m ready to go and I want you to go too.
In Ephesians 4:12 God tells us He has given the church everything it needs to “equip the saints for the work of ministry.” The goal is that the church (the church is me and you by the way) would be “fully mature…fully developed…and fully alive like Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).
The Apostle Paul told the Church at Colossae something similar when he said he was working hard so one day they could be presented to Christ as, “mature (fully grown, complete) in Christ” (Colossians 1:28).
Somewhere we got distracted, didn’t we? We stop growing up. Our growth became stunted. We started thinking it was about us and not about Him.
I recently watched a movie called, The Martian. It’s about an American astronaut who gets left behind on a mission to Mars and he has to figure out a way back to Earth and how to survive until that day comes. One of the best lines in the movie is when “the Martian” says you have to “Do the math?”
In other words, do the work, what’s it going to take to get the job done. Jesus said something similar when He said, “count the cost” (Luke 14:28).
Supposedly we did that when we first started following Him but maybe we need to do the math again and stop playing it safe. Live life the way Jesus lived life? Maybe we need to take off our shirts, kick off our shoes and be reckless in a good way, sharing the Good News, baptizing and making disciples.
He told me to tell you that.
“Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe!” (Psalm 150:4)
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