I swear, God isn't a Dick or anything, it's just that...

I read this blog sometimes titled "Jamie the Very Worst Missionary", I won't take that much credit, but I'm on the same page.

One of the charming realities of the Bible, and grace, is that we can trick ourselves into thinking certain core commands are optional, situational, suggestions, or directed at a select group of A-Team Christians. Matthew has a few cherry passages I highly suggest you avoid if you want your life to stay intact (Matt 25:31-46 and 28:16-20). If you are foolish enough to read them you will learn that going to all nations, preaching the gospel, making disciples, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the prisoners, etc. are commands for all Christians rather than extra credit assignments for the overachievers. The question isn't what am I going to do with my life, but rather, what are these things going to look like in my life? Ironically, voting principles, worship styles, and "feelings" are unmentioned.

I don't write this as someone who "gets it", far from it. I invest large chunks of my life and finances in missions and gospelly type stuff, not because I'm good at being a Christian, but because I suck at it and I know it. I love God and I love the gospel, but leave me in the States for an extended period of time and my life will resemble the spiritual stagnancy of many of those around me - I hate that. I wish I was a good enough Christian to live in comfort, without challenge, and feverishly press into God, giving myself fully to the hidden desperation of those around me, but I'm not.

I'm not a missionary because of my commitment to the Great Commission, that would be a bit too healthy and spiritually mature. I'm in the missions field because I want to, I need to, depend on Jesus, and I won't do that somewhere else. Give me a sixer, a flatscreen, the NFL package, and a lounge chair and you will have a Herculean challenge getting me to church, let alone out helping the hungry and naked. The thing is I really want to be a "good Christian", at least in the biblical sense, this is why I put myself in situation where it is much easier for me to walk in those directions.

I hear people talking about can and can't, feelings, comforts, callings, fears, etc. (I stumble into them myself from time to time) as if they had the ability to impact God's desires for us and his commands for out lives. If you committed to being a Christian, you submitted all that other stuff to God. I don't know what God's commands look like in your life, and I have no idea what they would look like in mine if I weren't in survival mode, but I know concerns for comfort and the placation of fears don't apply. It's not that God is a dick or anything, its just that he cares more about the way things turn out than he is for the comfort we find in passivity.