What an inspiration!

Just received some amazing news about an amazing friend. He lives a life that is more radically abandoned to God than anyone I’ve ever met. Years and years ago he turned his life away from one of obsession with money and everything that comes with it. Now he runs a martial arts academy, doing amazing work with kids and infusing Biblical principles into everything they do in an intense and inspiring way. He also takes annual mission trips to feed the hungry in Central America. This guy operates at a level of connectedness with God that I can barely even fathom. Every minute of his day is consumed with service to God. It’s in inspiration just to be around him. Unbelievable.

So last night I received an invite via Facebook to attend his ordination ceremony. What? I had no idea this was even on the radar. He and his wife are being ordained as ministers. This is awesome news! It could not be happening to a more deserving family. And it makes their lives, their marriage, their connection with God, their discipline, their radical abandonment, that much more inspiring.

I’m a pretty decent guy. But I am suddenly launched into wanting what he has. Not in an envious way. But in an inspired way. When people tell you to live a life for God that makes others want what you have, that’s this guy. And I don’t even need to go through the “how does he do it” list of questions. I know what he does. I know how he lives his life. I just need to do it.

So happy for he and his wife and their family, and starting today off feeling exceptionally inspired to work toward a life of abandonment like theirs!

Go have an awesome day everyone!! Live your life today in a way that everyone around you is inspired to abandon their lives to God in an amazing way.

Wow. I’m NOT abandoned to Christ. Not even close.

Remember a while back I put up a post about starting with small things to abandon yourself to Christ?  Well that has been a learning experience for me because I have found it very difficult to give up even the simplest things, even when doing so just to test my willingness to give something up or take on something new.  I am WAY off the mark on the little things, so no wonder I feel like I’m missing the boat on the big things.

But I’m not down on myself about it.  I’m seeing it more as good news.  Things are pretty good now, and I’m a total screw up.  Think about how AWESOME they will be as I continue to grow in faith and become more willing to abandon my life for the one who created me.

This could get seriously cool.

We were built to be heroes.  It’s about time we started acting like heroes.

Get infected: This ain’t no prosperity gospel.

photophilde / Foter.com / CC BY-SA

I’m a fan of small steps.  Stop stressing out about where God will lead you over the next twenty years and just do something to serve Him over the next twenty minutes.  That’s where is starts.  That’s not where it ends.  This is no prosperity gospel where you give the minimum and get the maximum.  In this gospel, you give it all and strangely stop caring about all that stuff you used to want.  But that doesn’t always happen all at once.  Maybe you’re like me, and it starts with small steps.

I’ve gotten some emails asking me whether I honestly think that doing small things for God is enough.  Doesn’t God expect radical abandonment?  Of course He does.  But you have two options.  The first option is to sit around doing nothing (like I did most of my life) waiting until you are so compelled to turn your life upside down that you do it all in one shot.  We’ll call this the Damascus option (Google it).  The other option is to get infected.  I’m getting infected.

Serving God is infectious, people.  It gets into your fibers and takes over.  But it needs a place to start.  It takes something small you get you hooked.  Here’s the deal.  God built you to love feeling happy.  He built you to want things.  He built you to want satisfaction.  The greatest trick evil ever pulled off was convincing you that the junk we buy actually delivers that satisfaction.  And it does, kinda, for a little while.  But the satisfaction you get from watching your high def TV is nothing compared to even the smallest act of service for God.  Nothing.

I don’t advocate small steps because they are better than large steps.  I advocate small steps because they are better than nothing.  And let’s be blunt here for a second.  A lot of us are doing nothing.  I did nothing for years.  Decades, actually.  You can read the second chapter of my book where I describe over and over the times that God dropped lay ministry right in my lap and I was either too dumb or too stubborn to do anything with it.  For me, I needed small steps to catch the infection that would lead to large steps.  I think right now I’m somewhere around medium steps.  But every day that goes by I see a path coming more and more clear that someday leads to radical abandonment.  God shows it too me slowly because he probably knows I’m too much of a spaz to handle it all at once.  My Damascus moment might be right around the corner.  I need to keep working and praying to be ready for it.

I wish I didn’t need to take small steps.  But I do.  And they are better than the non-steps I took for the first 35 years of my life.  My small steps having me starting to feel the infection working within me.  I know that one day I will wake up, look at my wife, and describe to her an adventure that is both scary and awesome all at the same time and we’ll finally say, “We’re doing it.  Whatever the cost.  We’re doing it.”  And those small steps along the way will have prepared me for that day.

I hope you get called to do something crazy.  Something radical.  But until that happens, please join me in taking these small steps.  In the Bible we always come in at the good part.  We come in right when the fishermen are dropping their nets to follow Christ.  And we’re amazed that they would do that right out of the blue.  But was it out of the blue?  What was their backstory?  What small steps had they been taking over the previous ten years before that day came?  Who knows… maybe they wrote a blog.

These are my small steps.  What are yours?  Telling your small steps helps people to connect.  It helps to get them moving in the right direction.  Or, if you’re already onto big steps or even radical abandonment then I would love to read your stories and comments as well.  Inspire us all.  It’s what you were built to do.

We were built to be heroes.  It’s about time we started acting like heroes.

Photo credit: photophilde / Foter.com / CC BY-SA