Ordinary radicals

I read an article today that totally hit home with me. It's about a couple who wanted to live radically. Who moved to Africa and China and lived on basically nothing and when they came home to the U.S. found themselves struggling to live radically while paying bills and buying expensive things. If you have a second you should read this...

It gave me a fresh perspective on what it means to live like Jesus and for him. To not get stuck into conformity but to make tough decisions and risks even in the mundane everyday life. Yes, it's necessary to buy certain things, but it gets messy when we view those things as an end-all. Yes, it's difficult to live in community, but that's what we were made for. Yes, some people we know buy a lot of expensive things that we don't really agree with, but who are we to judge? We don't know their motives. And God wants us to enjoy life.

I'm sure all of us have experienced times where we want nothing ordinary, we are sold out to God and his plans for us and we don't care if our surroundings and society think we are weird. But so often we lose that passion and become complacent. So what does it look like to live in the in-between? To understand that doing some things like the world does is okay, but to also take steps that keep us from just blending in with the crowd.

I keep asking myself, "How will you live radically today?" And not for the sake of living radically but because Jesus' kingdom is bigger and better than the world's and I definitely don't want to miss out on it.

New

So clearly I have been avoiding this part (the blogging part) of my circles duties but I just haven't found the motivation to sit down and write about myself and how I'm doing.

I'm in a weird place. Everything in this season of life is new. New house. New job. New routines. New friends (you guys). And all this NEW is a good kind of NEW. I should be fine. I'm not scared of new. Typically, I'm the kind of person who likes new very much. Who decides on a whim to travel or move somewhere just for the sake of newness. I like when things change and I've thought for so long that I thrive on it. Well here I am in the midst of all this newness and I'm feeling anything but new. I feel Old. Numb. Complacent. I feel like God has been preparing me for this season and now that I'm here, I have no idea what to do with it, or with myself. I'm not grasping on to what he's given me and I'm not striving to see what role he has given me in his story.

But I want to want more of God. I long to desire his will so much that my agenda no longer matters. I know that God satisfies those who hunger and thirst after him but I need to get to that point. I want to yearn for Him and not be satisfied by anything else.

I guess I want to catch up to the rest of the newness in my life. I want to be made new and in that newness seek God and find him and find myself in him.

Side note: After sitting down to read a lot of your blogs, I felt fuller. As I stepped back from my own life to look at even a few of your stories, it is clear that God is doing his thing and he's so much bigger than I usually give him credit for. Thanks for being so open and real in your posts.