Jesus scares me. Literally.

            To be honest about everything, Jesus scares the crap out of me. I mean the main thing behind following Jesus is dying to myself and living the live that He calls me to. Dying to yourself is such a huge task. It means taking everything I have, everything I want in life, and scraping it all for the hopes of something better.

            I have a dream life. We all do. I want to have a wife, kids, a dog, the works. What if Jesus wants me to be single? No kids, no dog, no home. no white picket fence. Shoot, maybe even no regular job. This seems like my life would almost be a failure, and it could, if God calls me to other things.

            I think God calls people to make money (to spend for the purpose of others), to have wives, kids, and throw barbeques and the what not, and I would love that calling. In fact lately I’ve realized that I want these things so bad I haven’t even been consulting God on whether he wants me to have them or not.

            Following Jesus even gets scarier than not having the stuff you want. He can tell you to do things that would be considered freakin’ nuts by others. What if God calls me to move to the projects in NYC and try to love gang members, but not just one gang, all the rival gangs. That’s dangerous. One of my best friends is called to the Middle East to help the underground church there, where it is illegal to follow Jesus. That’s nuts. But he trusts God’s plan. I want to do that.

            But I hold back. If I really wanted to seek God’s will for my life it would be more than a passing thought. It would be consuming my mind, and my actions. I would pray a lot, fast a lot, talk to others, read the Bible and spend time listening, waiting for God to give me that bit of information. But I don’t. I’m too scared.

            What if I am called to death? Or to be tortured? Or to be homeless to love the homeless? Where did my American dream go? I guess that will have to die with me, because I am intent on letting Jesus live my life for me. He’s better at it.

God’s Power > Man’s Wisdom

            I Corinthians 2:5 says, “… that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” This is something that stuck out to me recently. I think that I am overly dependent on the wisdom of men rather than the power of God, and I can tell because of this: when I have a question or a problem, I don’t go to God first, or sometimes not at all. I go to a book or a person who I think is wise.

            I don’t think this is a necessarily bad thing, that is asking someone who is smarter than you about what they think you should do in a certain situation. The problem comes when God is left out of the new equation. I don’t think that relying on God to speak to someone else instead of talking to God about it yourself is a good route to take.

            I think that God should be the person you talk with pretty much everything. I’m so bad at this. One of the things that I need God to work in me a lot is prayer and listening. I am bad at both of those. I am by nature a fidgety person who needs five different things going on at the same time to keep my attention.

            To avoid struggling with the part where you are silent and listening to God, I tend to look at my bookshelf to find a book on the appropriate subject, glance over said book, then talk to Klash, Bailey, Adam and whoever else about the topic at hand. I have become dependent on God using others to speak into my life than Him to. Something that I don’t think is Plan A.

            So please people out there who know me in real life, try to push me toward seeking the power of God before the wisdom of men. It really is something that needs to happen. I’m kind of sick of having God second hand through other people, and its not on Him. Its on me.