Crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, I'm back from Durango and what should have been a six hour drive took nine and half hours because of construction in Pagosa Springs and people driving 35 mph in a 60. Aaagghhhh!!!!!!

And I got back just in time for our soccer game last night, which we won and we're now going to the playoffs! I'm so excited cause my parents will get to see my last game too! They'll be in town for it and I'm excited because they haven't watched me play sports since high school. It will feel like old times:)

Well...I learned a lot at youth camp. First of all, Charlie Hall and his band were awesome and I think that's where I learned the most. He spoke a lot about how he came to write the words to his songs and what they meant to him and what that means for us. It got me thinking a lot and really challenged me. One of his songs is about how God is all I need. Whether I'm rich or poor, He's enough. And he spoke about giving all he could hold just to have Jesus. Would I? Am I willing to do that?

I don't remember if it was him or David Nasser but one of them was talking about how when Jesus called His followers to follow them He asked them to leave everything behind to do so. They didn't wait a few days or a few months, and they didn't say goodbye to people. They were so overcome and so convicted of their calling that they just left and followed Jesus. Why is that when Jesus puts a calling on my life I have to get everything in order in my life to do so first? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense does it?

Another thing...those "followers" of Jesus were marked "crazy" by others who didn't understand. They were marked "radical". You would have to be crazy or a radical to follow Jesus wherever even if it meant bringing harm to yourself or living in danger and uncertainty. I want to be crazy. Mark me as crazy. Call me a radical. Please don't ever call me a normal Christian. Don't ever label me as like all the rest. Don't ever say to me that I'm "safe". And please don't ever say that I'm comfortable. I don't want to be any of those things. Look at the followers of Jesus. Look at those who gave up their life for the sake of Jesus and the gospel. Look at them. Really look at their lives and then read everything that others said about them. They weren't normal. And thank God they weren't! Look what their "craziness", uncomfortability, and radicalness brought to others. It brought them the gospel. It showed others what really taking up your cross meant. It showed me what a heart set on fire for God looks like.

I pray my heart never looks to the people around me for examples but that it only looks to the one who made it. He was a radical and He was uncomfortable yet lovable. He was gracious yet confrontational. He was all of these things because He had to be. May I be the same, following ever so closely at His heals that I pick up every word His heart speaks.

Seriously, are you a "normal" Christian or are you living like "radical" that others label as "crazy"? I hope it's the latter. I want to be the latter.