The Overrated “Normal” Life

We all want to fit in a box…if we are honest, if we search our hearts and even science that says, social norms are what society loves to mold themselves into.

But this gospel, this Jesus-loving, radically-changing, people-caring life will be out of the box, if we live it right.

I see my old picket fence. The life I had; two kids, a dog, one tall white house on a hill, with shutters and a white property-lining fence.

I had it all; education, people’s praise, a life so molded and carefully orchestrated. Everything in me should have jumped up in praise…

But, it didn’t.

I still ached; longed for the passion of Scripture, the conviction of people like Esther and Paul. I saw in my Bible individuals who lived bolder, stepped more faith-filled, crazily ventured out of the box.

The message of the gosple went forth, because of people’s faithfulness.

The boxed life I had was small…a form of hiding; a lie that kept inside, the truth.

While my spirit testified, “There is more”, His life inside challenged me, to throw down walls and keep stretching, trying to…

Living by faith, not by sight.

I had two choices at that point in my life….

Find hope in “safe”. Keep tight my little world where I was in control and even church was just something I checked off some box each Sunday….

Or leap in wild trust, reach for a God that loved me so big, so wildly, so much…braving a life that testified to who HE was.

I needed more than mediocrity, warming some seat in a building, to ease my guilt and anxiety, on Sundays….

I needed feet to really live what I believed; a God so big that He exploded any notions to shrink Him, put Him on a shelf and keep Him for safe keepings…

Only taking Him down when I need Him.

I needed a gospel that didn’t fit like some tract in my back pocket. I needed a gospel that penetrated my life, my relationships, my thinking, my way of living…

One that brought the healing, Scripture talked about, flooded me with love, the same kind that prompted Jesus to place the ear back on His enemy; a love forgiving the one who captured him in the garden before His crucifiction.

I needed humility, to take the bow off my life, and show people I was real, broken, and that’s why I needed a Savior.

For the perfect have no need for saving and my story was so long, so hard, I knew I couldn’t attribute anything good in me, to me….

It was all Jesus; only a Gospel that flipped my life upside-down and made me do things people told me not to.

See, often the world despises anything that demonstrates grace, magnifies Him, or exposes their plot to shrink up God into some small little formula they have created.

I needed the God I read about in Africa, converting thousands, healing masses. The God who terrified His enemies, didn’t compromise His purposes, and who reigned over everything.

I needed to step back, off my pedestal and find Him in my quiet prayers, the gentle whispers, the humble cries of my own aching heart.

And then, I knew I would change, He would grow with my faith, and be the God I saw throughout the Bible I had read since my childhood.

A God that doesn’t fit in a box, isn’t kept, or small and defeated.

When I gave God full reign in my life, He became everything I knew and needed; my hope, my joy, my Savior and Redeemer, in every single way.

All it took was that I longed to see Him. And where I searched for Him, He was found. He is Lord….King over all, the Great Redeemer; longing to blow away every notion of a God the world presents as small.

Yes, He is Lord. And He doesn’t fit in some box.