Crazy For You, Jesus!

God has been heavily moving my heart in the area of church planting.
I'm not a church planter, so at the beginning of all of this, I was sure God was confused...like when He was 'confused' about calling me to seminary...

Actually, I Knew God wasn't confused- but that made me confused; because what I "knew" about God didn't seem to match up to how He was clearly revealing Himself.

Like Moses, who knew he was a stuttering, murderous person, unworthy...
"Not me, God!"

Like Noah, who was not a ship-builder and who lived in an arid land...
"Doesn't make sense, God!"

Like Peter in the boat on a stormy ocean...
"This defies all logic, God!"

But God's answer never changes:
"You, follow me...do as I say...trust me I AM the truth!"

This week,I learned more deeply that when God asks you to do something, He is inviting you to participate in His glory, and the act that He commands you to do is a *privilege*, not a *task*.

This week, after months of culling together ideas...
...after being awakened in the middle of the night on numerous occassions to write things down that had come to me in dreams...
...after interacting with people like Darrell Guder, Andy Crouch & John Franke...
...after hours and hours of pouring over The Word...
... talking and probing friends
(some who did not even know I was probing them)...
...it finally came together and I knew what I needed to do!

And it was crazy!

When I say crazy, I mean really nuts!

And I was scared.

I was afraid because of pride (reputations are important, credibility is valuable, dignity is an important commodity)...and I knew I needed to "get over myself."

So I prayed.

And read The Word (God took me to 2 Corinthians 5, especially verses 13 through 15.)

These phrases bolstered my cowering heart:

"If we are out of our mind, we are out of our mind for Christ."

"His love compels us."

"He died so that we should not live for ourselves, but for Him who died."

And I was able to remain faithful to the "fast" that God called me to this Lent when He laid it on my heart to "fast" hesitation and procrastination.

The iron was hot...I knew it..and so I struck!

I sent an email to someone I didn't know, a prominent Pastor and Author and sent him the outline of the ministry plan that God has been feeding me for nearly a year...

You need to understand that for that entire time, I wasn't sure why I was getting all this stuff, or what/who it was for.

But now it seemed clear...and the clarity seemed crazy.

I was still scared, but I was COMPELLED BY HIS LOVE...
Words cannot describe the relief I felt after hitting "send".

This morning I got an email back from this fella confirming that this was just the email he needed at just this time. You can read about it here in his blog.

The phrase "dying unto myself" has taken on new meaning this week as I realize at a very deep and personal level, that when I am willing to put myself in a position of vulnerability, GOD WILL be faithful.

And He was faithful!

God's faithfulness is invigorating beyond words!

Through my willingness to be obedient and humble,even humiliated...
God gave me an energy boost!

This is truly the meaning of "When I am weak, then He become strong."

His gracious sufficiency envelopes me!