What I Learned from Reading Crazy Love.

So I finally finished "Crazy Love" yesterday.

And now I'm sort of left with the question, "What happens next?"

There is no doubt that this book has convicted me profoundly; probably more so than any book that I've ever read. But I'd just really hate to finish this book, walk away, and then do nothing. After all, the entire point of the book (to me, at least) is that our love for the God who has saved us should prompt us to take action and live the true Christian life; a life that goes far above and beyond the call in its desire to love, give, and serve.

As I read chapter 9 and the stories of people who did or are doing incredible things to further the kingdom of God, I left feeling really overwhelmed on a few fronts. Number one, I just can't imagine a life like that. It's scary, and even to me, a person who believes we need to trust and give God all we have and are, seems pretty crazy. But it also left me feeling overwhelmed in the sense that I just felt like I could never do this. "There's just no way this can happen," I continued to say in my heart. I was defeating myself before I even began.

And that's when I believe that the Holy Spirit spoke to me and reminded me that that's the point. I can't do it. Only He can. I believe that as a Christian, God is going to continue transforming me and changing my life. He has opened my eyes to many of the ways in which I am failing him through this selfish, self-centered, self-serving faith that I am living. Now He calls me to do something about it, trusting that along the journey, He is going to mold and shape me and change my heart, mind, and lifestyle into being one that gives even more glory and honor to Him.

So how am I going to change? Number one, I'm going to pray that God would help me to love Him. That was a prayer mentioned by Francis at some point in the book, and it's one that I've started praying since. And though I've only been doing that about a week or so, I believe that I'm already seeing some fruit from that and that I'm seeing the beginnings of God's transformation on my heart, and that excites me. God tells us that without love, our service means nothing, so it all has to start here.

Secondly, I'm praying for God to have all of me, and to use me and spend me for His purposes, whatever that means. If I'm brutally honest with myself, I think that I sort of fall into that category of people Francis talks about who are honestly satisfied with the amount of God they already have... God occupies a segment of our lives so that we can claim to be Christ-followers and just go about living life. I don't want to be that person. In the most loving way possible, while I believe those people are certainly loved and saved by God, I think that is a terrible substitute for the true Christian life. As much as it scares me to pray for God to have all of me, I'm going to pray it anyway and see what happens. To do anything less wouldn't be living up to the fullest extent of the plan that God has laid out for me.

I'm also going to make a strong commitment to give more. I already tithe 10%, but I am very convicted that I need to be giving more than that (just a personal conviction; please don't think I'm saying everyone has to do this), embodying the generosity that God has shown to me in Christ. So I've decided that each month, in addition to my church offering, I'm going to offer up an extra portion of my income to help the poor, the oppressed, the sick, and the hungry across the earth. Does that make sense given my lack of income right now? No. Does it scare me? You bet. But God does ask us to test Him in this matter, and I, for one, am anxious to see how He provides.

I know I need to serve somewhere, but I'm not really sure where my heart lies yet. Maybe in homeless ministry? Maybe helping single parents and/or broken families? Maybe helping out those suffering from addiction? There's a lady at our church who is actively involved in ministry to incarcerated individuals and their families... I'm sort of intrigued about that as well. This is what scares me the most, because in a lot of ways I think I treasure my time above everything else. But this is part of what I feel all of us as Christians are called to do... to serve and help others in need and distress, regardless of how difficult or uncomfortable it is.

Guys, I need your prayers as I embark on this journey. But I am trusting that God is going to do some amazing things as I continue to let Him lead me, no matter how scary it may seem.

What did "Crazy Love" teach me? It taught me to adopt a model for my life of loving, serving, and giving because that is what God so generously did with us.

wb

P.S.: On a totally unrelated note, our lead pastor at Suncrest (church I am interning at in NW Indiana) preached a really great message on the priority of sex yesterday. However, what really struck me was the opening 7-8 minutes of his message, where he focused on the priority of singles (since people who are both Christians and unmarried hopefully are not having sex), and it was really something that I was touched by and could empathize with. Listen to the August 23 message called "Priority" at http://bit.ly/plFcu.

Crazy Love, Chapter 6: When You're In Love

Where's chapter 5, you may be asking yourself? Well, I'm not sure I'm ready to write that one yet.

But still, we press on.

This chapter really hits home for me, mostly because I think this issue of loving God has been a struggle at the center of my entire Christian life. You can say "I love Jesus" all that you want, but if the motivation isn't there, it simply isn't there.

I really struggle with loving God wholeheartedly and for the right reasons. I think I've shared on here before that I don't think I've ever really experienced what it means to be "in love" with another person, and that kind of frustrates me because I don't really have much of a barometer to go off of in my relationship with God. People tell me that "when you're in love, you'll know." Well, I'm not sure that I know, so I guess that means I haven't really experienced that... and biggest of all, that means I haven't experienced love with God.

I am definitely committed to being and living as a Christian, I think. (haha note the irony there? Well done, Wesley. Well done.) I mean, I've been baptized. I don't miss church; heck, I've committed my life to serving in ministry. I go to a Bible college, and I major in Biblical Studies. I give 10% of my paycheck each week in the offering plate. I try to let the teachings of the Bible shape the way I live my life and interact with others. I don't say this to brag, but just to state some facts.

Yet, is it possible that despite all of this that I am just missing the point?

I really wish to be engulfed in a relationship with God the resembles the one Francis Chan describes with his wife's grandmother. I really wish that that was me, were I just love spending time in prayer, reading Scripture, simply sitting back and worshipping, all that stuff.

But I think that if I'm really honest, I look at a lot of Christian spirituality as simply one big chore. I want all of the grace and forgiveness without much of the effort. I make a pretty good effort at the facade of a Christian life, but there's very little heart behind it. If all my faith does is fill a Sunday morning time slot, stop me from having sex before marriage and keep me from cussing and getting drunk all the time, then that's a pretty sorry belief system. I want a faith that transforms and changes me completely, and I'm not sure that I'm seeing that.

I'm kind of coming face-to-face with the idea that transformation doesn't just happen. Transformation won't happen in my life without my fair share of effort. For instance, I am hideously overweight, and for a long time I think I just kind of thought that would magically change without me actually changing for some reason. Yet, now I realize that change doesn't happen unless I make a change. Thus, this summer began my big running experiment.

The same goes with the Christian faith. I won't see my life transformed and changed unless I'm willing to take the initiative to make some change and transformation myself. That requires hard work like praying when I'm tired, making time to read God's Word each day, and worshipping even (especially!) when I don't feel like it.

But the great news is that God is more than willing to meet us halfway. I'm right on with Francis Chan in believing that we need God's help to love Him that much. I'm a sinful human, and I am incapable of loving anyone beautifully, truly, and completely. God will help me along in that process if I simply (persistently) ask Him. I think we just need to understand that it's not some magic process where I wave the wand of prayer and I'm magically transformed from Wesley Blackburn into Mother Teresa. There is real work involved.

So what have we put in the way of loving God? I've put a lot of stuff in the way.

• Spending hours of my day daydreaming about being in love with whatever girl I'm crushing on (probably only happens like 3000x a day).
• Spending my money on acquiring the newest clothes, gadgets, music, whatever.
• Placing a higher priority on spending time with friends over spending time with God.

None of these are bad things in and of themselves, but they become terrible when they are prioritized ahead of God. Remember the God we learned about in chapter 1? That God is way cooler, way bigger, way more important, and way more worthy of our worship than any other thing on that list above (or any of our lists, really).

Lord, help me to love You. Help me to be lost in a genuine love and affection for You. Help me to love spending every minute with You, and may I enjoy as close a relationship with You as humanly possible. May I not just read about examples of that relationship; God I want to experience that relationship. As scary as it is, Lord, I offer my entire life to You. I am surrendered to You. Lord, may I know You better and fall more in love with You each day.

Amen.

Crazy Love, Chapter 3: Crazy Love

I struggle to say the words "I love you."

I'm a pretty analytical person. And I am also of the persuasion that love is something beautiful and important. So, I probably also struggle to say "I love you" because other people toss the word "love" around so much. I know some people that love everything from their television to their grandma to their toaster oven.

I'm not so sure that's what love is meant to be.

I've never been in love, and I kind of wonder what that feels like. One day, I hope to fall just head over heels in love with a girl and have my heart beat fast and my stomach get butterflies each time she looks at me or talks to me or whatever. So juvenile, I know. But I hope to one day experience that. And I think that the fact that I don't feel like I know what love is or looks like or feels like kind of makes it hard for me to love.

I love my mom and my dad and most of the time, my sister (just kidding, I love her all the time). I love my friends. But I struggle to love God.

In addition to my struggle to say "I love you," I think a big reason why I struggle so much at loving God is simply the nature of the relationship. I just really struggle with loving this immense and huge God that I cannot see, touch, feel, etc. That's kind of weird to me.

I don't know that I carry a ton of baggage into looking at God like a Father. My dad is great, and I love him. However, through the first 12-14 years of my life, dad worked long, hard hours at his job. I feel like I never got to see him that much, and we've since just kind of had this relationship that's not very relational. Just kind of short, sweet, and to the point. We have our great moments, to be sure, but overall it's just kind of a not very relational relationship. Maybe I carry some of that over into my relationship with God, too.

I struggle at loving God. For the longest time, I did all the right Christian stuff, but I'm not sure it really did me much good because I did it because I would feel guilty otherwise. Especially in junior high and my first few years of high school, I did stuff like praying and reading my Bible not because I wanted to or because I loved God and wanted to get closer to Him, but because I would feel guilty and like a bad Christian if I didn't. Eventually, I got so frustrated because I wasn't getting anything out of this stuff that I basically gave up the day-to-day following God stuff. I didn't walk away from the faith or anything, and I certainly still made an effort to worship and follow God, but around my senior year in high school, I just kind of gave up on the whole daily Bible reading and prayer stuff because it was frustrating me and I just hated doing it. It was boring. I really empathized with that loveless faith that Francis described at the beginning of this chaper.

Probably because I was doing all that stuff for all the wrong reasons.

Since the start of 2009, God has really been working and getting a hold of me in this area. Slowly but surely I'm starting to do the day-to-day following God stuff like praying and reading my Bible because I understand that these are not exercises for me to check off of my Christian To-Do List, but that these are real ways in which God and I form a relationship. That's been difficult for me to embrace, but I'm slowly coming around, and that really excites me.

I sincerely agree with Francis Chan... if we ever truly learn and understand the basic idea that God loves us and cares for us and even wants a relationship with us, it will rock us to the core. I think that for me, familiarity has breeded contempt in this area. The message of God's love has become too familiar to me, and I gloss over it like I would any other mundane, ordinary thing. Yet, the fact that God loves me isn't ordinary at all. It's huge! It should shake my whole understanding of faith, following Jesus, and living my life.

After finishing the chapter, I was really overcome with this sense to simply meditate on the question: "What does it mean to say that God loves me?" I turned to 1 Corinthians 13 for my answer, replacing the word "love" with God. It was kind of a powerful exercise to pray about. Through it, I was reminded of God's incredible patience and perseverance with me. I was reminded that God always has my best interests at heart, and is incredibly kind and merciful to me. But most of all, I was reminded that God never fails, and would never leave me.

I love God. That's a fact. I love Him for what He's done for me, but I also love Him because of who He is, and because of the mere fact that even when no one else does, He chooses to care for me, to listen to me, and to love me, even when He gets absolutely nothing out of this relationship (which, let's be honest, is probably 99.99999% of the time).

"The greatest knowledge we can ever have is knowing that God treasures us" (p.61). I pray and pray and pray that God would continue to open my eyes to this mind-blowing truth.